On the Brink
by TheRedPoet
Summary: Torchwick has been caught, his plans foiled, and the White Fang's being unusually quiet. Perfect circumstances for love to blossom. Right? Pollination with plot.
1. Chapter One

Warnings for Pollination, violence and plot twists. Be very afraid.

* * *

Chapter 1 – The first step

Ruby couldn't recall ever having been more tired as she walked along the courtyard outside of Beacon. She'd barely slept the night before their excursion to Mt Glenn and might have had an hour of rest before everything went crazy. Now that the adrenaline had faded, she was barely able to put one foot in front of the other and keep her eyes open at the same time.

Yang didn't look like she was in any better shape – but she sidled up and slung an arm around Ruby's shoulders all the same, offering what little support she could. Ordinarily, her skin was just a little bit warmer than most people's – something to do with her semblance – but now she was cold and clammy.

Her Aura really must've taken a battering for that to happen.

Weiss was too proud to ask for help, of course - she was kinda silly like that – and walked with her back ramrod straight, her posture as perfect as always. She glared at Blake the first time the faunus steadied her when she stumbled. Blake made sure that the next time looked like an accident and Weiss didn't complain.

Ruby's bed beckoned her, with its soft sheets and plushy pillows, but she resisted its siren call. It was time to do the leader thing.

"Sooo," she said, slipping out from under Yang's arm to stand before her team. "We should all get cleaned up and put all of our scrolls on the floor before going to bed."

Judging by their expressions, something had gone wrong somewhere. Ruby backtracked until she found where things had gotten confusing.

"Oh – so we set our scrolls on alarm and put them in on the floor so we can't just reach out and shut em' down, see? We've still got classes and debrief and we don't wanna completely ruin our sleeping pattern, you know how grumpy you get, Yang."

She felt a little light-headed and remembered that breathing was a good thing to do.

"So… maybe two-three hours?"

Yang grumbled something under her breath and Weiss gave her a look that would have withered small plants, but they all filed into the bathroom.

Each team had its own bathroom adjacent to their dormitory, a room almost as big as their living quarters, with one stall available for each member over by the far corner, and two small rooms for toilets.

Each shower stall had a drape to offer as much privacy as one wanted, with a slit into the wall to put razors, shampoo, towels and whatever else one might want to bring.

After several months together things should've gotten less awkward, not more – and it seemed like it had. Just not for Ruby.

She kept her eyes firmly focused on the white porcelain tiles as she pulled off her boots – but even with such precautions, there wasn't anything she could do about noticing how pretty Weiss' calves were, slender but with muscle playing underneath soft, smooth skin.

Ruby's leggings were torn and ragged, far beyond any hopes of repair and she threw them into the trash. The rest of her stuff was fortunately mostly fine and Ruby intentionally dawdled so that the rest of them were already in the showers by the time she headed over there.

"You okay, Rubes?"

Ruby stepped into her own stall and turned the knobs until the water pouring down over her was just below scalding.

"Mm-hmm," she confirmed as the cocoon of warmth enveloping her added to the bone-deep sensation of weariness. "Jus' tired."

She looked over at her sister but the mix of jealousy and admiration for her beauty that usually struck her was effectively smothered when she saw the nasty bruises marring her skin.

"Am I okay?" she asked in a shrill voice, pointing. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing." Though her tone of voice was light, she wouldn't meet Ruby's eyes. Yang Xiao Long was and had always been a crappy liar.

Ruby considered pushing, but decided it could wait until after they'd slept and when they weren't quite as naked.

It took almost half an hour to get rid of the dust and grime out of her hair and by the time Ruby was done with that, she realized she was alone in the bathroom.

She wrapped herself up in towels and headed back into the dorm. Three scrolls lay on the ground and her teammates were already passed out in their beds. Ruby smiled as she dug out an overlong t-shirt she'd stolen off Yang, pulled it on, and climbed up to her own bed.

She'd barely gotten her head down on the pillow before sleep claimed her.

About a minute later, she woke up to the sound of blaring alarms. She blinked open bleary eyes and slowly sat up, waiting for everything to stop spinning. Across the room there was a crash, followed by Yang swearing sulfurously. She was joined by Weiss a few moments later, though her vocabulary was… more selective.

Promising herself an early evening and a large stack of pancakes with her coffee, Ruby managed to drag herself out of bed.

None of her teammates looked to be in better shape than she felt like, but they dutifully stumbled out of their own bunks to shut down their individual alarms.

"We've got to report to Ozpin in an hour," Ruby told them once she'd consulted her own scroll. "Uh – Sooo… Coffee?"

"Oh yes."

"Hell yeah."

"That'd be nice."

They got dressed in silenced and trudged their way down to the dining hall. Beacon had lunch hour between 11.00 and 13.00 and the students were encouraged to adhere to that schedule. Maybe Ozpin had told them to make an exception because it was 14.13 according to Ruby's scroll and things were still running.

A good thing, too, because she felt that both Yang and Weiss were liable to have psychotic murderous breakdowns if they didn't get their coffee soon.

They got a few stray glances cast their way – more than usual – and it wasn't until they were heading out of the hall again and ran into team CRDL and all four of them came to a dead halt that Ruby's brain caught up and connected the dots.

Blake wasn't wearing the bow anymore and her adorably cute kitty ears were showing and Ruby really just wanted to reach out and pet them. She knew she shouldn't, though, because that had to be all kinds of racist, and was she a bad person for even thinking about it, or just weird?

Cardin's eyes lingered on the eyes for a couple of seconds, then drifted over to Weiss. His smirk made Ruby feel uneasy and Blake had gone completely rigid.

Crap. Blake had forgotten to put her bow on… And nobody had even seemed to notice up until now.

"I wonder what your father's going to say when he finds out you've got a mongrel on your team."

Weiss' tone was pleasant on the surface, but it still made Ruby cringe as sure as the sound of nails drawn along a chalkboard.

"My father and the Schnee Dust Company value their good relationship with the faunus community, the same way I do."

Cardin laughed and his little friends laughed along with him.

"Really?" He asked with obvious distaste. "You know her kind can't be trusted. It doesn't matter how docile they act. Deep down, they're all animals."

He shook his head and Ruby sneaked a guilty glance at her teammates. Yang looked somewhere in between shouting profanity at Cardin's back and trying to lighten the mood with a joke, but wasn't doing either. Blake was still holding herself carefully still and Weiss was trembling with suppressed rage.

"I'm sorry," Ruby mumbled, looking down at her boots. They really needed to be cleaned. "I should've… Done something."

"It's fine," Weiss said.

"But I'm your team leader. I'm supposed to-"

"I said it's fine, Ruby," Weiss snapped. The words were barely past her lips before she grimaced and deflated visibly, sighing tiredly as she shook her head.

She didn't actually apologize, but her expression softened and she managed a gentle smile, which was good enough. Some things didn't need to be said. Others did.

Ruby walked up to Blake.

"I knew this would happen sooner or later," Blake said quietly and without looking up. "I thought I'd be ready by the time it did, but…"

She shrugged and Ruby felt even more shame piled onto her shoulders. She should've protected her teammate and told that big idiot Cardin to go… go do something somewhere else!

Possibly using swear words. Definitely. Next time, there would be swear words.

For now, though… Ruby didn't have any brilliant solution for the problem, so she did what she would've done with Yang, stepping forward and wrapping her arms around Blake in a hug.

The other girl stood there, stiff as a board, and Ruby was considering backing off when she finally felt Blake slowly begin to relax. Her arms moved up around Ruby's shoulders, one hand tangling in her hair and pressing her cheek gently against her front.

The faunus was tall enough that when she lifted her chin just a little bit, Ruby's head fit in perfectly under it, which was just awesome.

They stayed like that for a while and Ruby idly considered going to sleep right there. It was nice and comfy and Blake smelled nice. She didn't have any perfume on – she never really did – but her hair smelled citrusy from her shampoo.

Weiss appeared at Blake's side, a serious expression on her face.

"You're my teammate," she said, her voice carrying a steely edge. "My father's or anyone else's… Opinions aren't going to change that. I… I trust you."

Ruby slowly let go of Blake and stepped back to see her smiling tentatively.

"Thank you, Weiss."

Weiss tried really hard to look aloof. Her cheeks slowly coloured, which kinda ruined her attempt. For all of that, her voice remained prim. It was sorta cute.

"You're welcome."

"Uh guys?" Yang interjected. "Didn't we kinda have a meeting to go to?"

Ruby glanced down at her scroll. Crap crap crap, Ozpin was going to be pissed.

Ruby's knuckles had barely grazed the polished wooden door outside of Ozpin's office when his voice rang from inside.

"Come on in."

She felt Yang's shoulder brush up against hers, a warm solid presence at her side, and fought down her nerves as she pushed the door open.

Ozpin's office was a strange place, placed as it was in a large clock tower, with large gears smoothly turning overhead.

The headmaster of Beacon sat behind his desk with a cup of coffee in one hand and that strange cane he carried with him in the other. Ruby knew it was his weapon, but she didn't actually have any idea what it looked like when it was active. She made a mental note to ask some other time.

Professor Oobleck stood behind him and a little to his left. He'd had time to shower and change clothes, but clearly hadn't rested.

"I take it your mission was successful, then?" Ozpin asked mildly. "Professor Oobleck has briefed me already, but I would like to hear the events from your perspective, too."

Everybody was silent and it took a moment before Ruby realized they expected her to do the talking.

"Uh – so we found the White Fang. I guess you already know that, but they were planning something with the trains and we sorta crashed the party and then, well…"

She issued vaguely out the window. They couldn't actually see the aftermath of the crash and the subsequent battle, but it was probably still all there. Ozpin nodded.

"Roman Torchwick was apprehended in the wake of the battle, as were several other members of the White Fang. The police are no doubt dealing with them as we speak. Many others did not survive the grimm. Is there anyone unaccounted for?"

"Not that I saw," Ruby said, thinking out loud. "I was up top on the train with Pro- Doctor Oobleck."

She looked sideways to her team.

"I believe I fought some captain of theirs with a chainsaw, but he wore a mask," Weiss shrugged her shoulders daintily. "I do not know who he was but he seemed very eager to kill me."

Ozpin's gaze fell on Blake next.

"Torchwick," she said stiffly.

Their headmaster nodded, then turned to Yang. The blonde shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

"There was that weird chick with the pink and brown eyes. Kinda skinny and tiny, even shorter than Ruby or Weiss." Ruby glared at her and Weiss bit back a retort when she caught Ozpin's smile. "She fought with a parasol that she'd hidden a sword in and-"

There was a buzzing sound from Ozpin's scroll where it lay on his desk and his eyes glided down towards it, widening as he read. He held up a finger for silence and the gesture was imperious enough that Yang shut up immediately. Something not even their father had managed.

For a moment, Ozpin was completely absorbed by whatever message he'd received, eyebrows furrowing with concern. He showed the message to Oobleck and they had a brief whispered conversation about seagulls that Ruby assumed to be code before he put the scroll back on his desk.

"Apologies, ladies," he said, making a steeple of his fingers and preparing to once more be a good listener. "Please go on."

It took Yang a second or two to get started again.

"She didn't talk. Like – at all - not even when we fought."

"I see…" Ozpin considered her statement for a moment. "Very well, then. Unless there's something else that you'd like to add, I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut out meeting short."

He gave his scroll a rueful look while he waited to see if they had something to add. Nobody did.

"Before you go, I would like you to know that as your headmaster and as a huntsman, I am proud of what you did. Many lives were saved thanks to your bravery. Go rest. You've earned it."

There was genuine warmth in his words and Ruby felt her cheeks heat up. Rest sounded awesome.

"Thank you, sir." She rose and her team followed suit. "Just doing our job."

Ozpin's grin made him look a lot younger.

"And I'm glad you chose to discard the bow, miss Belladonna."

Blake's ears twitched - and oh goodness is was sooo cute - and she looked down at her shoes.

"Yeah," Yang said. "Guess the cat's out of the bag on that one? Eh? Eh?"

Ozpin could be heard chuckling as they left.

They eventually found themselves back in their room, slouched over in their beds. None of had been motivated enough to climb to the top bunks, which left Blake and Weiss sitting on one of the beds, both of them reading and at a respectable distance from one another.

It was still a big step for them.

In contrast, Ruby lay with her head in Yang's lap, lazily flipping through a weapon's magazine while her sister ran her nails along her scalp. Generally, Yang didn't have the patience to sit still and spoil her for very long, but she was apparently too tired now to run off. It was pure heaven. If Ruby had been a cat, she would've been purring.

"Blake, can you purr?"

The question left her mouth so suddenly that for a moment, Ruby was looking to see who had been silly enough to ask. Realization followed, accompanied by a healthy dose of dread. Ruby's cheeks turned red as the rest of her team just stared at her.

Under different circumstances it probably would have been fun to see that look of utter surprise on Weiss' face. As it was, Ruby desperately wished she could sink through Yang's lap, through the cushy bed and the floor and onwards until she was somewhere dark and out of sight.

Blake just rolled her eyes and returned to her book. The corner of her mouth twitched a little, though, so Ruby decided to postpone her plans of her future life as an exile in the Emerald Forest.

They had a long weekend, what with their excursion to the field being cut short, and there being no classes planned to fill the gap left. All things considered, that was probably for the best. They had rest to catch up on.

Weiss, the thoughtful slave driver that she was, decided they might as well get crackin' on their homework, now that they'd been blessed with extra time to do it. (Okay, so maybe she didn't say it quite like that, but...)

Before any of them knew it, it was Monday morning and they had about an hour until history class with Oobleck. They armed themselves with a cup of coffee each and settled at the far back.

Ruby leant her head down to rest on Weiss' shoulder and was promptly rewarded with a sharp elbow to the ribs.

"Meanie," she accused, pouting. The heiress was, unfortunately, completely immune to the expression. Yang had demanded lessons.

"Pay attention," Weiss snapped back under her breath as Oobleck began to dash back and forth across the classroom.

Ruby scowled at her for as long as she could manage, about three seconds, then looked forward sipping at her coffee and trying to pay attention.

"According to the stories, the Grimm descended, or were created by beings referred to as The Old One, which were said to have-"

Whatever they were said to have done faded to background noise as Ruby looked to her right instead, finding Blake doodling in a notebook and Yang already staring into space.

She leaned a little closer to the faunus girl and rested her cheek against her shoulder. Blake looked sideways at her and rolled her eyes, but for all of that, shifted closer and slouched just a little to provide a more comfortable position.

With a contented sound, Ruby let her eyes drift half-shut while Oobleck obliviously kept on lecturing.

"Now, these stories are spread all throughout remnant and seemed rather popular a few thousand years ago, but modern historians-"

Ruby yawned and snuggled up against Blake's neck. The older girl rested her cheek against Ruby's hair, draping her free left arm around her shoulders while she kept on taking notes with her right.

Whatever historic anecdotes Oobleck had meant to impart that day were lost on Ruby.

Glynda Goodwitch's stern emerald gaze swept over the students of her class with the intensity a descending eagle would pay a possum. Below the dias, Nora was helping Ren off the stage, having handed him a sound beating. They both seemed pretty chipper about it all, though.

"Do we have any more volunteers?"

Ruby was on her feet in a burst of motion and a rush of rose petals, bouncing on her heels with her hand up.

"Me! Me!"

"Miss Rose." Goodwitch pinched the bridge of her nose, momentarily letting her eyes drift shut. Her next words were tinged with a sigh. "Very well – Let's see who still hasn't fought-"

"I want to challenge Cardin Winchester to a duel to the de- Uhm - to a duel!"

More annoyance flickered across Goodwitch's face at the interruption, but she waved a hand in a permissive gesture.

"Mr Winchester?" She inquired.

Ruby thought she was a brief flash of fear in Cardin's eyes and she grinned at him. The big jerk-face was going to get his now. The big brute caught her looking and his eyes narrowed as the fear was drowned out by anger.

He rose out of his seat, seized the huge mace he toted, and proclaimed loudly:

"I accept the challenge."

They squared off fifteen feet apart to the sound of their teammates loudly cheering them on. Team JNPR pitched in on their side and even Velvet gave her the thumbs up.

Her heart was speeding up, sending adrenaline flowing through her system and Ruby found herself grinning. She pulled out crescent rose, keeping it in its compact rifle form and held it along her leg, pointed at the ground. Cardin had his mace resting on his broad shoulder and stared right at her.

"Big scythe for a kid, isn't it?"

Goodwitch was already stepping back and generally didn't get in the way of some trash talking before fights. As far as she was concerned, psychological warfare was fair game.

Ruby ignored the jibe. She'd show him all her baby could do, but she wasn't going to let the jerk get to her. He was a big guy, strong, and even if Pyrrha had handled him easily enough, that didn't mean he should be underestimated.

"Are you ready?" Ruby nodded without taking her Cardin.

"Ready," Cardin confirmed.

"Proceed."

Ruby guessed Cardin expected her to charge at him because of his oh-so-clever taunts, or at least hoped for it, so she did just that, dashing forward in a flurry of rose petals and whirling steel.

She could see the big oaf smirk at her, thinking she'd fallen for his trap, and immediately dug her heels in. Rubber soles screeched on the floor as she slowed down two feet short of Cardin, just outside of the reach of his mace, and dashed left.

She felt her lips stretch into a wild smile.

She'd meant to go for a single, devastating swing into Cardin's unguarded flank, but he recovered too quickly. Ruby adapted smoothly, retracting Crescent Rose into its compact rifle form and pulling the trigger.

Her baby roared and two bullets slammed into Cardin's gut like sledgehammers. He bore the blows and managed to swing in her direction, but she was already rolling back over one shoulder, carried by her rifle's recoil.

Cardin pressed her, whipping his mace through the air and deflected the bullets coming his way.

Ruby's heart pounded and she grinned with exhilaration as she met him head-on. She fired a bullet into Cardin's knee and pirouetted a foot side-ways to dodge his unbalanced strike, unfolding crescent rose as she did and slammed its blade into his back with all of its considerable striking power.

Cardin grunted and managed to turn his fall into a clumsy roll, coming to his feet with a wild sweep of his mace at the level of Ruby's waist. His eyes widened when he realized Ruby hadn't moved in on him and his strike caught nothing but empty air.

Ruby stuck her tongue out at him, put another two bullets into his center mass and walked to the center of the room, intentionally turning her back on him.

Cardin didn't have any ranged weaponry, which meant he only had one choice and Ruby waited patiently, waving up towards the stands and her team. She could hear his harsh breathing and the thump of his boots on the floor. It didn't hurt that she'd made Crescent Rose all pretty, leaving its blade shining like a mirror.

When Cardin was with a few feet from her Ruby sunk down into a crouch and put a single bullet into the leg Cardin's entire weight rested on. He stumbled and Ruby helped introduce his stupid face with the hard arena floor with a kick at his legs as he went by.

Jerk or not, his aura could take a lot of punishment. He got back up, snarled something at her, and came again, eyes wide with fury. It was almost unfair that was just the way Ruby wanted it. She wanted to embarrass him so badly that he'd never even think to look towards Blake or her team ever again.

Ruby let him try to hit her, letting each blow pass by as nothing but a whooshing sounds of displaced air. She waited for her moment and it didn't take long until he left and opening.

Crescent Rose crashed into his exposed side. She was just about to pull back and tell him to suck it, when his arm clamped down, pinning her weapon to his body.

She jerked at it purely on instinct and by the time she'd realized her mistake, it was already too late. A large, meaty fist crashed into her jaw with enough force that she fell backwards and only barely kept hold of Crescent Rose in one hand.

A sweeping kick took her legs out from under her and she hit her ass on the floor with a whimper of pain, still clutching on to her weapon. She rolled out of the way of the heavy stomp of a plated boot, and grabbed onto the base of the scythe.

Cardin struck her over and over and she tried to take the blows on her arms rather than her head, the way Yang had shown her.

She pulled at the weapon again it slipped out of Cardin's grip, but he caught it again with both hands just below the blade. He was stronger than she was... But not smarter.

Crescent Rose roared as Ruby held down the trigger and bullet after bullet slammed into Cardin's gut until the alarm overhead blared as his aura went down into the red, signalling the end of the match.

Applauds and cheers began to sound from the stands and Ruby gave a little bow to the audience, heart soaring with the triumph of her victory. Yang looked so proud and even Weiss was joining in.

"That's the match," Goodwitch concluded, eyeing ten feet furrow in the stone. "Well done, miss Rose."

Ruby beamed at Cardin, whose hands were going white at how hard they were clenched.

"Not so tough when the little girls fight back, are you?" She hissed at him under her breath, then remembered and added. "Bitch."

She turned over to Goodwitch for the evaluation.

There was a flash of red before Ruby's eyes followed by the sensation of falling, another impact and a disoriented haze. Warmth trickled down from her hair and over her face, tasting coppery on her tongue as some of it trickled past her lips.

For a few seconds, she didn't know where she was or how she'd gotten there. Then she saw Cardin on the other side of the arena floor. It took her brain a few seconds longer than it should to muddle through the details, but it got there eventually. He'd hit her. From behind. Way after they'd been done with the fighting.

She got her arms under her body and pushed, trying to get to her feet but the pain in her skull spiked and her stomach turned. For several long seconds it took all of her concentration to avoid throwing up all over herself. The room was deadly quiet, enough so that Ruby could hear her heart pounding with an accompanying stab of pain resonating through her skull each time.

A harsh, vicious snarl rang through the classroom and fiery angel descended the dias, landed smoothly in a crouch on the floor and charged Cardin. She was beautiful, scarlet eyes burning with righteous fury and fire trickling down her limbs.

It wasn't until Weiss and Blake leapt down in hot pursuit that Ruby realized that the angel was Yang.

They were both quicker than Yang and caught up after a few yards, each of them grabbing one of Yang's arms. There was a sizzling sound, like bacon hitting a hot skillet, and Weiss fell back with a yelp.

Blake did not. She held on, face set in grim determination, even as she burned, even as Yang fought viciously to free herself, bucking, screaming and kicking, she held on. Yang resorted to fighting dirty and stomped her foot onto her teammate's with enough force that bones cracked audibly.

Blake gasped and her grip loosened enough that Yang could tear one wrist free and slam her elbow into the faunus' solar plexus. While Blake was desperately trying to draw breath, Yang wrenched her other arm free and stalked forward.

Ruby tried to get up – to stop her – to do something, but she barely got her legs under her before they collapsed. She tried to use her semblance and a spike was thrust through her eye-socket. Well, not really, but it sure felt like it as the classroom dimmed before her eyes.

She fought against that darkness, clawing and fighting her way back until she could see her sister again. Without any other options offered, she crawled, inch by agonizing inch.

She had to make it. She had to.

Yang got to within six or seven feet of Cardin before Goodwitch stepped between the two. Her riding crop cleared its holster and thick iron chains shot out of floor, their attached manacles striking her sister's wrists like striking serpents and locking about them with an audible clack.

Ruby's vision was going hazy as the darkness pulled at her, but she took solace in the fact that she wasn't far away now. Yang fought to get free, tearing and jerking at the chains, the muscles of her arms taut with the effort. Her teeth were gritted against the pain and her wrists were bleeding where the unforgiving bonds cut into them, but she still didn't stop fighting.

Tears were pouring from her scarlet eyes and turning into steam on her cheeks as she stared with pure unrestrained hatred at Cardin Winchester.

"I'm going to fucking kill you!" She howled.

Yang only seemed to spot Ruby once she was a few feet away and her eyes widened – fear and worry replacing rage. She backed away slowly, her hair still surrounded by a corona of flame.

"Stay back," she warned, backpedalling as far as she could until the chains once more were pulled taut and she fell over on her ass. Her eyes were wide and slowly turning back to lilac as they darted left and right in search of an escape like a frightened rabbit.

Ruby ignored her words stubbornly and shrugged off Goodwitch's hand from her shoulder, crawling on until she caught up with her sister – and her two very blurry twins.

"S'ok," she mumbled, reaching out with a trembling hand until she found something to hold on to. "I'm okay. Jus' tired s'all. Gonna pass out now, I think."

Ruby slumped over with her head in Yang's lap, arms slung around her waist. She was warm, but the scalding fires from before were gone. Ruby stopped fighting against the pull of the darkness and her consciousness slipped.


	2. Chapter Two

"Turn."

"I think she's waking up."

"Of course she's waking up when you two won't shut up."

"Don't we want her to wake up? Yang. Could you turn the page, please?"

"No, seriously, she's waking up!"

Consciousness sneaked back up on Ruby slowly but surely and she tried to use her friend's voices as a reference point to get out of whatever dark abyss she'd found herself stuck in.

Ruby opened her eyes and found the world blurry. Blinking helped, so she did that a few times and she'd almost gotten a clear view of the criss-cross pattern of cracks in the ceiling when there was an excited squeal and a mass of blonde lavender-scented curls blocked her vision of the rest of the room.

"You're awake!"

Yang's hugs usually left people with bruised ribs, but she was very gentle this time around. Ruby's arms felt heavy, but she managed to lift them enough to return the embrace properly. They stayed that way for a while. Ruby wasn't sure how long and she wasn't sure when she started crying. She didn't even really know why as she clung to Yang, sobbing her eyes out.

When she finally wrestled control over her emotions back, the resident doctor at Beacon had arrived. He was an old man, tall and thin, with grey hair remaining in tufts at his ears and at his neck.

"Miss Rose," he said, in a surprisingly deep, gentle voice. "How are you feeling?"

He offered a glass of water and Yang took it from his hands, making sure Ruby sipped carefully instead of downing the entire thing at once like she wanted. She tried to sit up and didn't feel dizzy, just weak.

"Okay, I guess," she offered uncertainly, shrugging. "Nothing a plate of pancakes won't fix."

The doctor nodded and produced a flashlight which he asked Ruby to follow. The light stung at her eyes, but she did as she'd been told, looking right to left until he was satisfied.

"You should be fine," he said. "There was no internal bleeding and your cranium wasn't cracked. All the same, I would like for you to stay here for observation until tomorrow. Just to be sure."

He smiled even as he turned a stern, paternal look to the rest of the team.

"And I'd like for you to leave. Go get some rest."

His request was met with a mixed reaction. Weiss seemed to accept it. Blake masked her emotions too well for Ruby to read them. Yang… Not so much.

Ruby squeezed Yang's hand in hers, hoping to calm her down and avoid any outbursts, and the girl winced. She let go immediately, holding up her sister's fingers for a closer look, finding them covered in ugly bruises and scabs that still looked raw.

For a moment, Ruby wondered who she'd been punching and then she realized that the injuries more likely been a result of hitting something sturdier. Like a wall.

"What happened?" she asked. Her voice wouldn't stay steady and her eyes began to tear up again in worry.

"It's nothing," Yang said, wiggling her fingers for Ruby to see. She couldn't quite keep the pain off her face, though. "You just focus on getting better, kay?"

Whatever she'd been punching, her aura should've protected her, right? Right? Unless she'd depleted it entirely or… Or if she'd just suppressed it. But why would she do that?

"But-"

The doctor stepped in smoothly again.

"It would probably be best if you return to your dorm, Miss Xiao Long. Your sister needs to rest and so do you."

Ruby was pretty sure that Yang was about to protest, but Weiss came up behind her, gently placing a hand on her shoulder.

"She needs to rest, Yang. She isn't going to get better if she has to worry about you."

Yang winced at the blunt statement and tension gathered in the set of her shoulders. Her hands flexed into fists and back again and she let out a breath through her teeth.

"She's right," Ruby said. "You look like you haven't slept for a week."

Yang scowled at Ruby, but it was a half-hearted thing.

"Fine," she grumbled, getting to her feet and stalking out of the room.

Blake rolled her eyes and followed her while Weiss lingered. She hesitated for a little while, opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. Her cheeks were getting a little pink and Ruby was far too captivated by that process to help Weiss out.

"Get better soon, you little idiot."

There wasn't any malice to her words and Ruby grinned as the heiress stomped away without looking back.

Ruby didn't have to wait until the next day to leave and she was glad for it. She managed to sleep a bit more, but once she couldn't do that anymore, there weren't a lot of things for her to do to entertain herself. Her scroll had apparently been confiscated and her team hadn't even left any homework.

Okay, so maybe she hadn't been THAT bored, but it was close!

The doctor, who she found out was named Johansen came by every other hour to check on her, bringing some food by lunch. By the time he arrived with her dinner, Ruby was planning a jailbreak, drawing diagrams on a napkin to conclude how much of a rope she could make out of all the sheets in the room.

It must have shown on her face, because Johansen smiled and said:

"Once you have eaten, I'm going to let you go join your team."

Ruby almost fell out of her bed in her excitement, but managed to steady herself. Good thing, too, because the doctor wasn't finished talking.

"Once you have eaten-" he repeated with firm emphasis. "Should you experience any pain, nausea or disorientation I want you to come up here right away. You will need to stay clear of any rigorous physical exertions for the next week or so, just to be safe."

Ruby nodded eagerly, too busy stuffing her face with food to answer. She was free! Free at last!

She only barely managed to restrain herself from skipping as she left and immediately set off to find her team. It didn't turn out to be as easy as she'd thought. Her search of the cafeteria yielded nothing but a couple of strawberries. Her next guess, their dorm, proved to be empty and she still wasn't sure where her scroll was.

Next, she checked the library. It was usually well lit, with the computers and the tall windows letting light in, but night had fallen and few students were still about, none of them familiar. Sighing to herself, Ruby kept walking around along the stacks and the many tables set in nooks and crannies to offer those studying there something like privacy. She'd gotten to the very last of the stacks, at the most deserted part of the library, when she finally spotted a familiar figure.

Blake stood with her back to Ruby, browsing one of the shelves, idly brushing the tips of her fingers along the spines of each individual book.

She'd missed her so much. Grinning, Ruby set off towards her and jumped at her friend, intending to wrap her arms around her and not let go for a considerable while. She realized things weren't going to happen that way the moment her feet left the ground and at that point, it was too late.

Blake's ears flicked at the sound of footsteps coming towards her. With fluid grace, the faunus dropped into a crouch and smoothly slid one step to the side. Then her arm lashed out with vicious power.

Her elbow caught Ruby just between the ribs and the air went out of her lungs and stopped her forward momentum cold. She stumbled and managed to get a hold of one of the bookshelves, clinging to it as she gasped desperately for breath.

It sucked. It really, really sucked. No matter how hard she tried Ruby just couldn't seem get in enough oxygen, but she knew better than to curl up into a ball and whine and kept her spine straight as she waited it out.

Blake, meanwhile, looked… Terrified. It took Ruby a moment to recognize it because, hey, she'd just gotten punched, and because it was an expression she'd never seen on Blake's face. Not once. Not when they were fighting grimm, not when they were taking on terrorist organizations, not even when they were on a covert operation in the middle of nowhere doing both.

But now her face was sheet white. Her eyes darted left and right as if searching for an escape and her kitty ears were plastered against her skull.

"I- Ruby – I didn't mean to. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Ruby still didn't have breath enough to speak yet so she went with her only real non-verbal option, staggering the two steps of ground between them and wrapping her arms tightly around Blake's waist before she scampered.

"It's okay," Ruby promised her. She could actually feel her teammate trembling. "Totally fine, see?"

"But-"

"Didn't hurt one bit," Ruby wheezed breathlessly. "Promise."

Blake's eyebrow left rose skeptically.

"You're taking this very well," Blake noted. "If Yang had seen…"

"She woulda been mad, but not that long. She's a big softie. Besides, she kinda beat you up, too. Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Fine. My aura took care of the last of it hours ago."

Blake squeezed back harder and Ruby let out a contented little sigh, feeling reassured now that things would work themselves out. It wasn't until her worries were abolished that she really began to think about the position she was in.

Ruby felt wonderfully, gloriously warm and safe.

She could feel every inch of her teammate's body against hers, feel the soft swell of Blake's breasts and the soft tickle of her breath on her ear. Oh boy... She really hoped Blake couldn't see her face or she'd notice how red it had gotten and that'd lead to all kinds of badness.

"You fought well against Cardin. If you hadn't tried to show off, I don't think he would've touched you."

Yupp. Things were definitely heading towards radish-territory.

"Yeah, well…" She pulled back just enough to look up at Blake. "He was a jerk to you. I wanted to teach him not to mess with my team."

Blake's grin softened into a tender expression. She was really close, still, and looking right down at Ruby. Her golden eyes were almost luminous in the darkness.

"You didn't have to do that for me," Blake all but whispered. She brushed her fingers along Ruby's cheek and it sent tingles all the way to her toes.

"I know," Ruby said. In a way, she felt even more breathless now than when she'd been clobbered. "I wanted to."

Blake was leaning in closer. Ruby could feel her breath tickling her lips. She was going to get her first kiss! It was seriously happening. Her heart was beating about a bajillion times a minute.

It wasn't like in the movies Ruby had seen, not in the cheesy romantic comedies she'd watched with her dad, or the more risqué ones Yang thought she'd hidden away well enough that they wouldn't be found. There was no music cue, no gorgeous sunset disappearing behind them as they finally closed the distance.

Blake's lips were a little bit dry, but she was warm and soft and let out a breathy little sound of excitement at the contact. They stayed like that – Ruby wasn't sure for how long – and then Blake pulled back slowly.

Ruby's heart kept pounding with something not far off panic.

"We… We should probably head back," Blake said.

"Probably," Ruby agreed, feeling a little dazed.

She didn't know what to say about… whatever had just happened between them. Should she ask Blake if they were girlfriends now? Maybe that was a bit too quick? Would it be too desperate to ask Blake if she'd mind making out a bit more sometime soon maybe?

There really should be textbooks and lessons on this… She'd usually ask Yang, but this probably wasn't one of those times.

For the moment, she settled for twining her fingers with Blake's as they snuck back out of the library. Her teammate paused for a moment to smile at Ruby and squeezed, which she took to mean things would be okay.

The halls were deserted and they didn't meet anyone until they walked through the door to their dorm.

"Hey guys," Ruby said, smiling broadly and waving. "All be-"

Yang hit her like a speeding train, which she kinda knew a lot about actually, but which didn't really prepare her for the impact or the crushing hug that left her face squished against a whole lot of cleavage and wild blonde hair.

"Yaaaang," she protested, wriggling to get free. "Can't – breathe."

"Move aside, you big brute," Weiss appeared at Yang's side, nudging the girl aside. She hesitated for a moment and then gave her a brief hug, her cool cheek brushing along Ruby's as she did.

Ruby grinned at the bunch of them and turned back to bed. They'd only moved up a few flights of stairs on their way back to the dorms, but her legs felt leaden. Her head spun a little and she had to hold on to her teammate to stay on her feet.

"Could you take me to bed?"

Blake's eyes widened to the size of saucers. Well, not really, but they got all big and she blushed and it was really, really cute. She might've misunderstood the request.

"Sure. Let's get you ready first."

She led Ruby along to the bathroom. Yang hovered nervously, close enough that she'd probably get there in time if Blake dropped her.

"We should head to town tomorrow," Ruby said through a mouthful of toothpaste. Some of it dribbled down her chin and she was sure that, despite the wall being in the way, Weiss could see it and was rolling her eyes about how messy she was being. "We could catch the game and buy some clothes and – stuff you guys wanna do."

"Are you sure you're okay to do that?" Yang asked quietly.

It weirded Ruby out a little to see her so subdued, which only reinforced her motivations for Best Day Ever take 2. Her sister clearly needed cheering up.

"Yeah," she insisted. "Yeah. I'm totally fine. Just all tired. Tomorrow I'll be right as rain."

She pondered how rain could be right – or wrong for that matter – and by the time that she'd concluded it was probably more likely to right, because rainy days were boring, Yang had relieved Blake and was pulling Ruby over towards the bed.

"You should've heard Ozpin chew out Cardin," Yang said. Her nervous laugh was more nervous than amused. "I've never seen him that pissed. Cardin looked like he might cry."

"Serves the jerk right," Ruby mumbled.

Her pillow felt extra-soft and cool as she laid her head down it, eyes drifting closed. She was vaguely aware of Yang unlacing her boots and dumping them on the floor and then sleep came for her.

Ruby woke up to the smell of coffee and bacon. She looked around and found a plate of food on the little bedside table by Yang's bed, then frowned for two separate reasons.

First of all because she wasn't in her own bed. Yang apparently hadn't bothered moving her. Secondly. Someone, probably, hopefully Yang, had undressed her down to her underwear at some point.

Actually, three things. Thirdly and most importantly, she remembered the last time Yang had brought Ruby breakfast in bed, it had been to explain that she'd taken an early prototype of Crescent Rose out into the woods to try it out and wrecked it.

Ruby leaned out over the edge of her bunk and made sure her sweetie was still tucked in in its blanket under her bed and then looked around the room. She was alone, though she could hear the shower running.

Ruby lingered under the blankets for a while, nibbling on bits of bacon and sipping her coffee, which had both cream and sugar in it, just the like she liked it. It was still early and it was a nice way to wake up slowly. She was chewing the last slice of bacon, a little cold at that point, but still crispy and yummy, when Blake came out of the bathroom, wrapped in towels.

Her teammate slowed her steps a little and came over to settle next to Ruby's bed. Her gaze was direct and her golden eyes drew Ruby in and sent her heartbeat into crazy-town. Be cool.

Be cool.

"Hi."

Way cool.

Blake smiled at her, apparently unbothered by the fact that she was all naked, except for the towels, with droplets of water sliding lovingly down her smooth, toned arms and… Gulp. Ruby might've been staring. Maybe.

"Hi," Blake replied. She reached out and put her hand to Ruby's forehead. "Are you feeling okay? You're a bit hot."

Ruby choked on her own spit, which didn't help her case or coolness factor any.

"Uh." She cleared her throat. "Thanks and yu-huh, totally fine now."

Blake seemed mostly amused, which was a plus. Ruby had to force herself not to push her head against the other girl's hand like an attention-starved kitten.

"Yang and Weiss went to talk to the physician to see if you'd be alright to go swimming," Blake murmured, cupping Ruby's fever hot (for reasons completely unrelated to actual fever) cheek.

"They should be back any moment now."

There was disappointment in her voice and the thought of what might happen if they had more time had Ruby considering the what-ifs of life.

Blake's kitty ears twitched in the direction of the door and she rose smoothly, darting back to her own bed. A couple of seconds later, Ruby heard the footsteps in the hall.

The door banged open a moment later and a broadly grinning Yang stepped through, brandishing a slip of paper as though she'd found the secret recipe for Pumpkin Pete's cereal.

"Check it out!" She exclaimed. "Got you permission, sis. Doc's signature and everything."

Weiss rolled her eyes at Yang's antics and snatched the slip out of the blonde's hands, handing it over to Ruby. She looked at Ruby, frowning.

"Are you certain you feel well?" She wondered. "You're looking flushed."

"Yes!" Ruby insisted, a touch impatiently. "When's the bullhead leaving?"

Weiss didn't even react to her tone of voice and checked her scroll before replying:

"Ten minutes for the next one, but there's another in forty if you want to shower first."

Ruby nodded and got out of bed, heading into the bathroom. It wasn't really until she'd gotten ready and was digging through her drawers all the way to the very bottom where she'd kept the swimwear Yang had made her buy a year earlier, but never used, that realization struck:

She was actually going to have to wear that bikini at some point and be around people and worse yet, she was going to have to be wearing it next to Yang and the rest of her team. Whatever it was that she had going with Blake was going to crash and burn spectacularly in the next few hours.

Ruby got stuck in front of the mirror once she'd showered, watching herself. Her stomach rolled uncomfortably. Maybe people would be too busy watching Yang that they wouldn't notice her skinny legs.

"Ten minutes, Rubes!" the blonde called through the shut door.

Ruby sighed and got dressed. One way or another, sooner or later, she'd have to face the music. Why delay it?

"Coming!"

They walked out into a light drizzle but ended up running the last hundred yards to the port as the rain turned into a proper downpour.

Soaked and grumpy, they arrived at the bullhead, which was one of the larger transports that hunters and huntresses used on missions, among many other things. It consisted of one large compartment at the back, each side of the hull taken up by seats. The second compartment for the pilot and co-pilot was smaller, but Ruby thought the seats looked more comfortable.

Blake looked rather miserably at Yang as the blonde turned the water on her skin into steam with a flare of her aura, shivering a little where she sat.

Yang rolled her eyes and heaved herself up out of her seat again, wobbling for a moment as the bullhead took off, and then slipped out of her jacket, pushing it at Blake.

The faunus made a few token protests, but she knew very well that there was no arguing with Yang and smiled a little despite herself as she accepted it. Ruby frowned. She should've thought of how much Blake hated getting wet and cold, even if her cape was just as soaked and useless.

Ruby only had to sit and shiver and look miserable for about thirty seconds before Yang took pity on her too, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and pulling her in close. Snuggles ensued while Weiss looked on, back straight, rolling her eyes.

"Come on, Ice Queen," Yang taunted, crooking a finger in a beckoning gesture. "Don't you want me to get you hot?"

When they'd first met, Ruby would've thought Weiss' look was disdainful, but she knew her well enough now to see the amusement in her eyes, even if she was too - well, too Weiss - to actually acknowledge that she thought it was funny.

When the heiress didn't rise to the bait, Yang seemed bore quickly and began to hum along to the catchy upbeat song on the radio, tapping her fingers on her knees in rhythm.

She banged a fist against the hull of the ship with a loud reverberation, grinning, though the expression didn't look quite right.

"Yo, pilot! Turn that up!"

I burn!

Can't hold me now

You got nothing that can stop me.

I burn!

Swing all you want

Like a fever, I will take you down.

Her knuckles had healed up a bit, but they still looked ragged and Ruby cast her sister a look of inquiry. Yang shook her head, mouthing the word 'later', her whisper drowned out by the music.

Ruby did something she'd only done a handful of times in her life.

"No." There was a brief moment of surprised silence followed by annoyance and with that, Yang's calm facade cracked, betraying the tension and worry beneath.

Ruby took both of her sister's hands in hers.

"Tell me what's up."

She wasn't asking.

Yang shook her head, golden tresses rustling and refused to look Ruby in the eye. Both Blake and Weiss were averting their gazes and as much as she didn't want to make them uncomfortable, she needed to get to the bottom of this.

"It's nothing, Ruby."

"It so is!" She insisted, tugging at Yang's arm until the girl finally looked down at her.

"Tell me," Ruby all but whispered, shuffling closer to Yang and putting her arm around the older girl's shoulder.

It hadn't been obvious just looking at her, but she could actually feel Yang shaking. Her sister's lilac eyes were wet with tears and Ruby's stomach sank into some unimaginable abyss at the sight. Some sister she was. Some team leader.

"You didn't get up. At first. When he hit you. I thought you'd…" Yang's voice was hollow, almost lifeless and the last word of the sentence got stuck in her throat.

"I'm still here," Ruby said, reaching out with a hand. "I'll always-"

"Don't!"

The snarl cut through the already uncomfortable silence. In the corner of her eye, Ruby could see both Blake and Weiss flinch, but she stayed perfectly still when Yang shoved her hand away, trying to blink the tears out of her own eyes.

"You can't promise that," Yang whispered. "What would I tell dad if- if something- happened."

"So?" Ruby ventured. "What if it was you getting hurt, huh? I'm scared too, Yang."

"I'm supposed to take care of you. She said-" Yang broke off yet again, throat bobbing as if she tried to swallow down whatever words had been about to spill past her lips. "I promised her I'd take care of you."

It only took Ruby a few seconds to connect the threads.

"Mom," she said quietly, reaching up and cupping Yang's cheek. "Right?"

Yang made a low piteous noise and nodded. She leaned in and wrapped her arms around Ruby, almost as though she'd collapse without her for support.

Yang cried. Ruby held her. Hot, fat tears dropped onto her neck and shoulders and the minutes ticked by with no sound other than the blonde's shuddering breaths and the band reaching the song's crescendo.

The pilot hit a button and news reporter who had replaced the music slowly faded away into silence.

"The beowolf was dealt with by Hunters and Huntresses from Beacon without any casualties. Though it is unusual for elder grimm to venture so close to-"

"You don't have to worry," Ruby said, slowly patting the older girl's hair. "We'll take care of each other, kay? Just like we always have."

"Yeah," Yang agreed, her voice thick.

Slowly, over the course of the following minutes, her vice-like grip on Ruby slackened. Her breathing evened out and the tears stopped falling. She pulled back, wiping at her eyes and nose with her arm and casting an embarrassed look over to Blake and Weiss, who were now discussing their favourite bands.

Ruby mouthed the words "Thank you" and the heiress gave her the slightest of nods in return as the bullhead touched down onto the landing pad with a soft thud.

"Thanks for the ride!" She said, waving goodbye to the pilot.

Downtown Vale was a bustling place, always lit up in a dazzling colours that kept the dark at bay even at the deepest, dreariest hours of night. In the daylight, it was no less colourful, with plants growing in pots along most of the open shops and flags flying in the light breeze.

The drop-off point was located in Old Town, which was the first part of the little city that had eventually grown to be Vale. The narrow cobblestone streets and the preserved remnants of the old city walls gave the place a quaint feeling and Ruby decided that once she was a proper huntress, she'd live in a place like that when she wasn't off saving people and kicking monster butt.

It seemed to improve Yang's mood too, though Ruby noted that she stayed close as they walked down the streets by the riverside. Their elbows kept bumping together. Blake and Weiss were still forcing conversation along, but their smiles were getting strained.

Yang didn't get grumpy often, but when she did, it took her a while to snap out of it. Unless Ruby utilized her secret weapon that thus far hadn't failed to cheer her big sister up. So she waited until the blonde took a moment to look elsewhere and then pounced at her back, locking her arms and legs in place.

Yang actually stumbled before she managed to adjust her footing. Oops.

"Oof. Ruby, no. Get off." There was laughter lurking behind her words though and Ruby could tell she was smiling without even seeing her face and clung on harder.

"Nuh-uh," she said. "Not till you're done sulking."

"You're way too big for this," Yang protested. "Gonna have a frickin' hernia."

Ruby smiled with her chin propped up on the blonde's shoulder. For all of Yang's huffing and complaining, she only put up a token effort of getting rid of her before accepting the inevitability of the piggy-back ride. She was pretty sure she was Weiss trying to hide a smile. Pretty sure.

A few minutes later they spotted the glass cupola of the water park's roof rising above the other buildings, glinting in the sunlight and Ruby jumped down to her feet again. A look up at Yang confirmed that she'd been properly cheered up and the red-head zipped over to Blake and Weiss, appearing between them in a rush of wind and rose petals.

Blake gave her a look that was… trying to say something. Ruby just wasn't sure what as the faunus gave her a light push towards Weiss and headed over to her own partner.

"Are you okay?" Ruby asked as they entered the parking lot of the water park and began to weave in between parked cars.

Weiss' look mixed disdain and worry. Somehow. She cast a covert glance over towards Blake and Yang, who seemed perfectly at ease not talking. There was something else in her expression that Ruby couldn't read.

"Yes. Are you?"

"Sure. Operation un-sulk Yang has been completed. How are you doing with Blake?"

Weiss shrugged.

"It… is improving. Slowly."

"That's great! I'm sure you'll be besties anytime - huh - look at that."

A family of rats were making their way out of the sewer pipe leading out into the river, the smaller rats following the mommy and daddy rats. Or so Ruby assumed. Then another group came, and another, and another, little nimble black forms swarming out and swimming across the water.

"What're you looking-" The last word turned into a horrified shriek as Weiss spotted the rats. Before she knew it Ruby had her teammate in a haphazard bridal carry.

"Uhm. Are you okay, Weiss?"

Ruby smiled at her, lengthening her stride to get to the doors leading the to the water park's lobby, holding them out for Weiss gallantly. The smile was there in the heiress' eyes, even as she rolled them at Ruby's antics and they all headed up to the counter manned by a young man.

He was what Yang would call a "tasty specimen". A few years older than they were, of course, and wearing a t-shirt stretched taut by his broad chest and shoulders. He looked a bit like what Ruby thought Jaune might look, given about five more years spent at Beacon's gym and nowhere else.

She wasn't sure if Weiss caught the way Yang's eyes lit up with glee or not, but she stepped forward and handed the guy a sleek white credit card before the blonde could say anything.

"Four please," she said, without barely even acknowledging him. "Shall we?"

"No." Blake stepped forward and put down a couple of lien on the counter. "Three. I'm paying for myself."

"Uh - miss. I've already charged the money, so-"

"Sure," Blake said, holding the bills out to Weiss instead. "Here."

There was something in her voice that Ruby didn't like and she could see Weiss' posture change as she settled into the same stance she'd use if she had Myrtenaster in her hand.

"It's fine," she insisted. "Keep it-"

"I don't want your father's money," Blake, a snarl underlying her subdued voice.

Ruby was familiar enough with violence to sense when it was in the air but it was Yang who was the fastest and moved in between their two team mates. She exchanged a long look with Blake, which fitted a lot of talking in without any actual words, and then carefully turned the girl around and led her towards the changing rooms, speaking quietly all the while.

Weiss was still standing at the same place, her body rigidly tense, her blue eyes furiously locked on their friend's retreating back. Ruby watched her for a while, so still she might have been a statue if not for the harsh breathing, trying to decide what to do.

"Hey Weiss… Do you want some ice cream?"

The heiress' expression softened, if only slightly.

"Yes. Why not?" She hesitated. "Do you mind it if I pay for you?"

Ruby shrugged.

"Nah. I like it when you spoil me."

Weiss almost smiled as they strolled over to the counter again and bought them each the most expensive ice cream available. They were quiet for a while, slowly enjoying their treats. Weiss probably felt guilty about earlier because she kept watching Ruby eat her ice cream, which was most delicious thing ever, her cheeks slightly pink.

"Blake didn't mean it," Ruby said. "Not like she said it."

Weiss sighed and considered her own ice cream for a while. Apparently her appetite had been spoiled because she dropped the half-eaten thing into a bin.

"I am aware of that," she said stiffly, "and I understand but…"

Snow-white hair bobbed to and fro as the heiress shook her head.

"But?" Ruby prompted. She was tempted to go over to her teammate's side of the table and give her a hug, the way she would Yang, but had a feeling that might not be well received.

"They're still my family," she said. Her voice was hushed, her gaze resolutely locked on her hands, folded in her lap. She looked uncomfortable enough that Ruby decided it was time to change the subject.

"Okay," Ruby said, voice soft. "Do you maybe want to go inside now?"

Weiss took a slow, steadying breath and nodded with a practised smile.

"Yes. Let's go."

Ruby had about a minute to congratulate herself on her brilliant diplomatic skills and then they'd made their way into the changing rooms and Weiss was getting undressed and… Oh.

Eyes downcast on the white tile floors, Ruby tried to focus on getting into her own bikini and stowing her clothes into her locker. A task that by all rights shouldn't be difficult, but which turned out to be when she was desperately trying not to look at anything or anyone. She and Weiss had their own little separated alcove in the rows upon rows of lockers and the silence grew stifling.

She couldn't stare at her own feet all day long, though. Time to be proper huntress and face her problems. Ruby looked up to find Weiss pulling her own teal bikini top on. Her problems turned out to be really nice… and perky.

Weiss was every bit as gorgeous as always. Unlike Ruby, she was slender rather than skinny and there was nothing about her that suggested frailty.

"So… Uhm. Wanna try out the slides?"

Glacial blue eyes fell on her.

"You're supposed to be taking it easy."

Ruby pouted.

"But the slides, Weiss. Have you seen 'em? They're so cool and I-"

"No."

Her tone left no room for argument and Ruby's hunched her shoulders as they stepped out into the aisle leading along the rows of lockers for twenty or so yards before opening up to a larger room with showers to one side and saunas to the other.

"So what're we supposed to do?"

They went past the showers and out through the door straight ahead. It had been almost eight years since Ruby had last visited the waterpark, but the memory had always stuck with her. The scent of chlorine, the noise, the warmth, the humidity in the air. None of that had changed. It was all a lot smaller than she remembered, though.

The water park was split into two large, open areas with a hundred foot ceiling ceiling in the form of a glass cupola. The area to the right, past double-doors with round windows, was for exercise swimming.

Straight ahead, broad stairs led up to level after level with their own water slides, each consecutive level and slide more extreme than the previous, all of them leading down into a large pool off to the left.

The floor there tapered down slowly, providing plenty of space for young children to splash about while their parents watched.

A safe distance from the poolside they had a little cafe where parents could enjoy a coffee and a pastry while still keeping an eye on the children.

She smiled a little, remembering how she and Yang had scaled those stairs to the water slides with the determination of adventurers scaling a mountain. They'd tried out every one of the slides that day and it hadn't been until they were being told the place was closing down for the janitors to come and clean that they'd agreed to leave.

"We could go for a swim as long as you don't-" Weiss took one look through the window of one of the door separating the exercise swimmers from the more parky part of the water park and turned around.

"Or perhaps we should try the jacuzzi."

She didn't leave Ruby any room to argue as she stalked over there and with one last longing look towards the water slides, the red-head followed.

"You guys suck," Ruby groused. She only managed to maintain the expression for a few seconds and then dashed up to Weiss in a flurry of her semblance. "Soo… Are you excited for the tournament?"

"Yes. It is going to be very interesting to test ourselves against the teams from the other kingdoms." She glanced sideways to Ruby. "And I expect everyone to be fully committed to victory."

"And to having fun," Ruby said. "Fun's important, too."

"Having fun won't be part of the grading and-" She stopped herself and sighed. "Having fun might be… Nice."

Ruby grinned at her.

"Cos Neptune's going to be there?"

With so much skin bare, Ruby had a great opportunity to note just how much of it went pink when Weiss blushed.

"Whether we happen upon Neptune or not," Weiss said. Her voice was level but she was looking everywhere but at Ruby.

The jacuzzi itself was huge, almost the size of team RWBY's dorm room and several jacuzzis, each leading to the other, separated by small trees to provide a bit of privacy from the raucous noise made by all the playing children. A waterfall made its way from each consecutive tub next to the footpath, trying to give the impression of natural hot springs.

They walked past two old ladies not so subtly bragging to one another about their grandchildren, finally finding someplace where they could sit alone at the back.

"You sure, Weissy?" Ruby asked, unable to keep herself from grinning. "Sure you don't looove him?"

Glacial blue eyes flashed with anger and Weiss covered Ruby's mouth his her hand, muffling the rest of her words. Her skin was cool and very soft but there were clear callouses from her practise at swordplay.

"Don't say stupid things like that," the heiress scolded her, eyes narrowed.

Ruby wasn't about to be silenced, though. She licked Weiss' palm. Weiss shrieked and Ruby repeated herself just because.

"This is a public place, you utter dolt. Stop licking me!"

There was a sound of surprise and outrage to mirror that of her teammate from the other pool and the old ladies.

Weiss froze at the sound, wide eyes flicking sideways nervously, then back to rest on Ruby with a dangerous spark in them.

"You juvenile little-" Weiss snarled in impatient, impotent rage, hands flexing into fists. "If you weren't recovering from an injury I would - I would-"

Ruby couldn't help but to smile more and more broadly the angrier Weiss got. It probably wasn't a good idea, all things considered, but she was just so cute when she was furious. Her face got all red and a vein on her forehead popped up.

"Anyways… Neptune seems nice."

Weiss glanced sideways at her and said nothing.

"I'm sorry if I pissed you off. Again."

The heiress sighed.

"It's alright. No harm d- Oh for goodness sake, what now?"

A grinning Yang and an expressionless Blake had appeared around the brush, quite obviously being escorted by one of the lifeguards. Her sister waved with the one arm that wasn't being restrained.

"We're being thrown out by Patrick here," she declared, looking up at the guy and winking.

"And why is that, exactly?" Weiss asked, eyes narrowing.

Most people would've withered under the weight of that glare but Yang kept on beaming.

"I might've pushed a snotty little shit into the pool."

"You did what?"

"And he might not have been able to swim."

"Why?"

"And we might never be allowed to come back here."

Weiss rubbed at her face, looking from Yang to lifeguard Patrick, clearly debating who should be on the receiving end of her displeasure. She could be a handful when she didn't get her way, even without using the clout that her family name gave her but there had been way too much arguing for one day already.

Ruby put a hand on her, feeling the rigid set of her shoulders, and how the muscles slowly relaxed under her fingers.

"C'mon, Weiss. Let's just go someplace else. There's a really nice movie going."

"Why exactly did you decide it was appropriate to push a child into the pool, Yang?" Weiss asked.

The blonde shrugged.

"Talk shit, get hit, you know."

She glanced sideways towards Blake, smiling sheepishly.

"Fine."

They followed Patrick towards the changing felt pretty certain that it wasn't fine but at least Weiss wasn't going to explode. Maybe she'd get her another ice cream later. After dinner so that she wouldn't ruin her appetite. Yeah, that'd probably work.

They spent an hour rambling around town and by the time they'd decided on a movie to watch it was dinner time. They had pizza, the nutritional value of which Weiss complained about, though that didn't stop her from eating all of it. At least she didn't insist on stinky anchovies on her pizza, like Blake did.

Next, they moved on to the shopping mall a few blocks away from the movie theater, loading up on snacks and drinks. Weiss seemed to have mostly cooled down and Ruby was just about to risk putting her arm around the heiress' shoulder when she realized she wasn't there. Nor was Blake.

She turned around and saw Blake crouched in front of a young faunus man about their age, sitting crouched with a hat by his feet, speaking quietly to him.

Ruby sidled up to Weiss and Blake returned to them. Weiss looked… Off. Her brows were furrowed in thought and she was staring at Blake.

"I didn't even see him," she whispered. "I looked right at him and I didn't notice he was there."

"You've trained yourself not to look," Blake said, returning to the group.

Weiss blinked at her, then straightened her spine and cleared her throat.

"I'd like to apologize for my earlier thoughtlessness, Blake. It was… Impolite and inconsiderate."

Blake's gaze drifted down to her black knee-high boots and her cheeks coloured but she nodded.

"You meant no offense. I… Overreacted. I'm sorry."

Ruby just about to call for a group hug when Yang butted in.

"Aww. Now kiss and make up!"

Their two teammates had been staring at one another with a growing intensity and at Yang's words, they turned glares to the blonde. Ruby herself was a little preoccupied with the mental image of that heat that had been there between them spilling over, for them to grab onto one another, pushing, clawing as their lips met in a…

Yang gave her shoulder a prod.

"You okay, Rubes?"

"Yeah. Just fine, sis!" Ruby said, her voice coming out breathless. She pointedly did not look at her sister, who had evil mind reading powers and would know all the dirty thoughts that had just gone through her head.

"Movie time!"

The cinema in question was one of the largest in Vale, hosting several movie theaters and staying open most of the day to show everything from silly action movies from Vacuo to surrealism from Atlas.

The movie they'd chosen was closer to the former and was about a bunch of ex-hunters and huntresses brought in for one last job to save an old friend from an evil genius on an island covered by tamed grimm with lasers on their heads.

According to Sun it was the best thing since peanut butter and banana sandwiches. He turned out to be more or less correct, as far as Ruby was concerned. The four of them were alone in the room, which meant Yang could heckle the bad action, while Weiss and Blake took potshots at the writing and direction.

The best part, though, was when Blake's warm, gentle hand found hers in the darkness and squeezed lightly.

The rest of the movie and the afternoon spent shopping passed by quickly and Ruby soon found herself back at Beacon. Everything felt like it had worked itself out. Weiss and Blake weren't all weird and stiff with each other any more - well, not as much as before anyways, and Yang seemed to be in a much better mood.

All in all, it had been a really nice day.

Ruby had long since gotten used to their Beacon dorm room. Those first few nights she'd had a difficult time sleeping, each new sound turned sinister by her nerves, and she'd gotten used to listening to the rest of her team fall asleep.

She could hear it when both Weiss and Blake fell asleep in their individual bunks just like she could hear that Yang was still awake, tossing and turning. She was starting to dread that it might be one of THOSE nights and that she might not fall asleep before Yang got started, but her fears turned out to be unfounded when her sister dropped softly off from her second tier bed and onto the floor.

She moved slowly across the room and Ruby lay still, waiting. Maybe she just wanted to use the bathroom? Or sneak out for whatever reason?

It turned out neither as Yang moved up to Ruby's bedside.

"Hey," she said quietly. "You awake?"

Ruby rolled over on her side to face Yang, resting her head on her hand. She clearly wanted to say something but for a while, she didn't. She just sat there on the floor, looking kind of small and helpless, neither of which were things Ruby had really associated with Yang.

Yang had always been her pillar. She'd been the one Ruby had leaned on when she'd felt weak or scared, no matter how silly or insignificant the problem, Yang had always been there. Maybe now it was Ruby's time to be there.

"What's up, sis?"

Yang settled on the side of the bed and remained there for a while, fretting with her hair and facing away. It was nice and warm under the covers and Ruby shivered as she slipped out from under them and settled beside her sister.

"I need you to promise me something, Rubes."

Ruby frowned, watching her sister's profile.

"Okay. Sure. What?"

Yang remained silent for a while, her breathing slowly evening out as she managed to regain some control of herself. When she spoke, her voice still trembled and it was barely a whisper.

"Live."

Ruby frowned, turning over to watch Yang's profile.

"Wha-?"

"We don't know what'll happen in the future, right? But whatever does happen I want you to live, okay? I don't care what you have to do or who you have to leave behind as long as you do that. Even if that means me."

Yang's eyes shone with unshed tears. Whatever self-control she'd managed to claw together was gone and her voice came out thick. "Can you promise me?"

Ruby smiled and wiped the tears off her sister's cheeks and didn't flinch even as she lied Yang right in the face.

"I promise."


	3. Chapter Three

The M-rating is thoroughly earned in this chapter.

* * *

Yang had about a week of complaining about the steadily deteriorating weather and unseasonal chill before she'd jinxed it so thoroughly that the heater broke. She was kind of sucky like that.

Of course, Ruby didn't tell her that because she had super team-leader planning skills and had the situation covered. While Weiss and Blake lay shivering in their bunks, she was sneaking over to her sister's. The floor was ice cold but she hadn't dared borrow Weiss' slippers since she'd been on the receiving end of The Glare.

She didn't wanna repeat that one.

"Yaaang," she whispered, giving the blonde's shoulder a firm poke.

"Jus' two more minutes, dad," Yang slurred, the words muffled by her pillow.

Ruby poked her again, harder, and her sister blinked her eyes open. There was no need to ask - Yang took one look at Ruby and then shifted half a foot closer to the wall, lifting up the covers.

Ruby gratefully slipped underneath and sidled up until Yang's arms wrapped around her, pressing herself flush against Ruby's back and enveloping her in a cocoon of softness and warmth.

"Been awhile since we last did this," Yang said after a while. "Can't even remember when."

"First night at Signal," Ruby supplied.

"Oh yeah… the thunderstorm."

"Stupid thunderstorm."

Yang didn't say anything for a while. She knew better, at this point, than to insinuate that there had been anything but the thunderstorm that had scared Ruby that night.

"Do you miss it? Signal."

Ruby considered the question for a moment.

"A bit," she said. "Beacon's way cooler and it's so awesome to have a team now and to get to fight grimm for real but… I miss Uncle Qrow and seeing dad more."

Yang's hold on her tightened and Ruby's eyes drifted closed.

"Me too. I'm glad you could come with me to Beacon. It makes this whole place more like home."

"Wish Zwei had been here, too" Ruby mumbled. "Coulda slept on my feet and kept 'em warm."

Yang chuckled and gave her feet a light kick.

"Frickin' icicle toes. We'd need a flamethrower to warm em' up."

"Shut up and warm me," Ruby muttered, kicking back gleefully.

"Always," Yang promised.

Minutes went by and the cold retreated from Ruby's bones (if not her toes). Yang's breathing slowly deepened and Ruby felt herself drift off too, feeling more comfortable than she could remember in a good long while.

"At least it's warmer here," Blake said. "I can't believe it'll take them a week to fix the heater. How hard could it be?"

"I know," Ruby said. "They wouldn't even let me check in on it."

It wasn't fair. She could totally have fixed it. Improved it even. Maybe added some kind of self-defense system to prevent people tampering with it. If only rats or mice could be trained to use laser guns mounted to their heads. It was definitely worth considering.

Blake squeezed her hand under the blanket they'd brought to the library. It had taken her half an hour to stop shivering, though it had given Ruby the excuse to snuggle a bit, which had been awesome.

Blake smiled at her and Ruby felt her heartbeat speed up and glanced out through the stacks of bookshelves. They'd moved all the way into the deepest recesses of the library and so they were probably safe. Safe-ish. She'd take the risk.

She squeezed the faunus girl's hand back and leaned in slowly. Blake met her halfway and their lips brushed. It started off soft, gentle, like the few other times they'd managed to sneak away for a moment of affection.

Much like those other times, it didn't stay that way for long. Less than a minute had passed when Blake pulled Ruby up into her lap, their bodies pressed snugly together.

"We… Should stop," Blake panted, her hot breath caressing Ruby's face. She licked at her swollen lips and heat surged through Ruby.

"Aww. Just one more?"

Blake laughed and and kissed her again, pulling Ruby's shirt out from where it had been tucked inside her skirt to allow her hands to roam greedily along the goosebumps rising on her back.

Ruby whimpered and rolled her hips against Blake and then froze when she'd realized what she'd just done. They parted slowly and only far enough to look one another in the eye.

"Oh." Ruby said. "I'm sorry. Was that was a bit - uhm - forward?"

"No…" Blake said, her voice smoky, her gaze unwavering. "It wasn't. Not if you feel ready for it."

Ruby pouted at the implication. She didn't want to sound upset or whiny, but she probably did anyhow.

"I can take care of myself, you know."

"I know you can, but this isn't a fight with grimm. It can be different, even if you know how to handle yourself. It's important to me that I know you're sure."

A frown creased Ruby's forehead. Blake looked like she did whenever she was thinking back on her past, most of which was probably sorta bad. They didn't talk about it much. Yang knew a little more but she wasn't the kind to gossip.

"Okay," Ruby said. "I'll tell you if you get too handsy or something."

She held out both hands in between them, waggling her fingers with her best attempt at suggestive look for illustration.

Blake watched her in silence for a few more seconds, assessing… something, probably if she was being serious. Then she smiled. Not a full-blown smile, like when Yang made some stupid joke but the shy one that only touched the corner of her mouth. Ruby liked that one better.

"Maybe we should save that for later, though," Blake said. "Someplace more private."

Ruby nodded eagerly. She moved out of Blake's lap, untangled herself from the blankets and dug through her bag until she found her scroll. 11:57. She knew Yang had gotten up late that morning, so odds were good she and Weiss were still working out.

"Probably best," Ruby agreed, looking out towards the rest of the library. "Say… You wanna go check in on Weiss and Yang? I think they're still sparring."

Blake's eyes twinkled.

"Do I want to see Yang kicking Weiss' ass?" She grinned. "I think I do."

"Okay. I'll call her."

She pressed the phone number next to the picture of her sister's grinning face.

There was a soft dial tone, then another before it resolved itself into a single, dull beep. Behind it, Ruby thought she could hear something. Voices. Lots of them, all melding together into that strange, shrill note, almost like a scream that had only ended when the person ran out of breath.

It sounded a lot like back when they'd had to connect their scrolls to the net via the wall-outlet before she'd gone to Signal.

"Let's just go see em," she said, restoring the scroll to her bag and swinging it over one shoulder. "I think the signal's having a tough time getting through or something."

Though it was a tower, Beacon also had several underground levels for some of explosion-y parts of Huntress training. The sparring rooms, the workshops and the dust labs were all underground and kept separate to avoid any sort of unfortunate chain-reaction.

They took the stairs down - Blake always went with the stairs when it was possible - and stepped out on the second floor, walking down the concrete hallway and peering through doors until they spotted their partners.

The room was a simple fifteen by fifteen yard square box made out of concrete with a padded matt taking up most of the center of the room, which was where they found Yang and Weiss.

The blonde bounced up and down on her bare feet, grinning broadly at the heiress as she batted aside her punches.

"Oh come on, Princess. I know you can do better than that!" Yang called out. "Hey Ruby!"

Weiss glanced over her shoulder and Yang's leg swept out, low and hard, striking Weiss at shin-level and sending her toppling to the floor in an ungraceful heap.

"What was I saying about paying attention?" Yang asked.

She bent down and offered a hand along with a generous amount of cleavage to Weiss while Ruby and Blake walked up to them, enjoying the way their teammate's face was reddening.

Having hauled the slight girl to her feet, Yang watched her with one eyebrow raised.

"You know…" she drawled. "If you're going to be staring like that at the goods like that, I think I'll want dinner first."

"That is not- How dare you suggest-" Weiss sputtered.

Blake was nice enough not to laugh out loud. They sat with their arms brushing up along the wall and Ruby could feel her shake with suppressed mirth, though. Weiss was visibly fuming - and Ruby would've sworn that was true - as she engaged Yang in another flurry of blows with newfound aggression.

"Get her, sis! Kick her butt."

"You're my partner," Weiss snapped, ducking under Yang's arm and moving back a couple of steps. "You're supposed to be on my side!"

"Sisters before misters. Or partners!"

Said sister closed in on Weiss in two long strides, leading with jabs of her left hand, forcing her opponent to defend, to be passive, while she waited for the right moment.

Ruby saw that moment just before it happened. Weiss lowered her guard just a little too much to avoid taking another blow the gut and Yang gave her head a solid tap with her fight fist.

"Keep your guard up," she called toward the staggering girl, "We're giving a show here."

"I think you're giving enough of a show for both of us," Weiss said through grit teeth, waving a hand towards Yang's ample cleavage.

Yang smirked, straightened, put her hands behind her back and arched her spine. Weiss made a valiant effort to maintain eye contact. Yang breathed in deeply and the heiress' gaze dipped.

"For the record," Yang stage-whispered. "I like burgers."

Weiss' fists clenched and unclenched and she calmed herself through a visible effort of will. The tension faded from the set of her shoulders and a slow, eerily sensual smile spread across her face, both tantalizing and frightening, like the fire that drew in the fly.

She sauntered forward in the most un-Weiss-like fashion, hips swaying. Yang's eyes had widened in surprise and she moved back half a step as the heiress advanced on her.

"Uh, Weiss, what're you-?"

Yang's confident grin faltered as Weiss looped her arms about the blonde's neck. She'd gotten real close, close enough that Ruby first thought they were about to kiss or something, standing on her tiptoes to whisper something in her ear. Ruby couldn' hear the words, but they made her sister's knees buckle slightly and Blake drew a sharp breath at her side.

And then Weiss fell back one step, drew her arm back and punched Yang straight in the jaw. There was a solid thump of impact, then a second as Yang's ass hit the matt and she lay there, stunned, staring up in utter disbelief.

For a few seconds, the room was silent. Then Yang chuffed out a breath through her nose, a soft laugh. Weiss' lips twitched. Ruby couldn't hold back her snickers anymore and grabbed a hold of Blake so that she wouldn't keel over.

Blake was the last to join the party, so to speak, and she set off everyone else again, until they were all more or less writhing on the floor with laughter.

"Shoulda seen your face," Ruby gasped, pointing at Yang. "Like she'd sprouted a second head or somethin'."

Yang gave Weiss' arm an affectionate punch and then leveled her stern gaze at Ruby.

Uh-oh.

"Since you're here, sis, why don't you come up for a round?"

Crap.

Ruby looked to Blake for help, only to find the faunus already on her feet and heading over towards Weiss. Grumbling, she headed over to her mean, grinning sister.

"No semblance," Yang said. "I saw that Torchwick jerk kick your butt when you didn't have Crescent Rose with you. You need the practice."

Ruby grumbled a bit more but started limbering up. On the other side of the room, Blake was doing the same, bending down to touch her toes. Ruby watched the process intently. Blake's tights hugged the curve of her rear in a very intriguing manner. Very intently.

"Earth to Ruby?"

Yang's fingers snapped in front of her face and her tone suggested she may have asked more than once.

"Yeah. Sup?"

Yang looked over towards Blake, then back to Ruby, with a knowing big-sister smile.

"I think maybe we need to have a Talk later," she said. "Come on."

They tapped their knuckles together lightly and began to circle one another slowly, the way Ruby had always watched Yang and their dad do when they sparred. Ruby fared about as well as her big sister had against their dad, too, and about an hour later, when they were dragging themselves up towards the dorms, she felt sore in places she didn't even know she had.

"You guys go ahead," Yang said, putting her arm about Ruby's shoulder. "We need a few minutes for some girl-talk."

Weiss clearly didn't know what to make of that, but she wasn't the sort to pry and headed off with a fluid shrug of her shoulders. The corridors of the first year's wing was still freezing and the students had all fled elsewhere, leaving Ruby and Yang alone and shivering when their partners had departed.

"So…" Yang drawled, reaching up to ruffle Ruby's hair. "You've got the hots for Blake, huh?"

Ruby could feel the heat of a blush creep across her face,despite the chill of the room.

"Yeah."

"How long has that been going on?"

Her voice was surprisingly gentle and cautious.

"Like… Two weeks, maybe? Kinda happened in the library after I got out of the sick bay."

Yang's brows furrowed.

"Hang on - what. What happened?"

"Uhm. We sorta kissed and…"

She waved her hands about, trying to illustrate… She wasn't even sure what, really, just the she didn't know what words to use to convey what she and Blake were to one another.

"And?" Yang prompted. "Did ya bang?"

"No. No, we haven't, well not really."

Golden eyebrows quirked up in question and all Ruby wanted to do was run, or preferably just vanish, anything if it meant they wouldn't have to talk any more.

"Just make sure to take care of each other?" Yang said, her voice lower, more serious. "It's not exactly my - uh - area of expertise or anything, but if you need to ask anything, you come ask me, okay?

Ruby nodded and Yang's bright smile was infectious as she led them back towards the room.

"C'mon. Let's get cleaned up and get something to eat. I'm starving."

They'd passed Weiss and Blake on their ways into the showers, with their teammates already getting dressed at the fastest pace they could manage, their breaths steaming in the frigid air.

"We'll meet you downstairs," Weiss said, grabbing her scroll off her bedside table before hurrying up with a miserable-looking Blake in tow.

Ruby and Yang lingered a little while in the showers, both unwilling to head out from the blissfully warm water. Eventually, they agreed it was time to go and braved the cold dorm, hurrying into their clothes and down the halls. It wasn't until they left their first-year's wing things got warm again.

They made an immediate bee-line for the buffet and Ruby was just arriving at the table with her plate piled high when she realized something was off.

Team JNPR, Weiss, Blake and Velvet sat crowded around a table - which wasn't entirely unusual - but they were all silent.

She cast a sideways glance to Yang, whose shoulders were tensed with worry and whose eyes roamed the halls for suspects, or possibly targets. With neither anywhere to be seen, Ruby walked up to the the table and settled at the edge of the group by Blake's side.

A scroll lay at the center of the table and a video recording played on it, the footage jumpy and just a bit blurry. Ruby leaned closer, resting her chin on Blake's shoulder and peered at the video.

The quaint little street of the Vale shopping distract they'd walked down only a few weeks before, on their outing to the water park and cinema. had been turned into a warzone. Shop windows were broken, fruit trolleys were set on fire and the streets were covered in debris. Ruby's stomach did an uncomfortable flip as Lisa Lavender's voice could be heard over the feed.

"What started out as a peaceful protest turned violent at noon today when met with counter-protesters and law enforcement were forced to separate the two groups. As of yet, there have been no reports of White Fang involvement. We have reports of dozens injured and will get back to you when we know more."

A group of faunus - fifty or so by Ruby's count - were clashing violently with the police in the video, using signs bearing messages of peace as improvised clubs.

"White Fang?" Ruby asked Blake, keeping her voice low enough that nobody else could hear her. She was starting to feel a little queasy.

Blake kept on staring at the video but shook her head once in the negative.

"This is wrong," she said, voice quavering. "I know these people they're not… Like this. For goodness sake, they don't even litter."

Velvet nodded in affirmation, ears drooping.

"Another Grimm attack, this one of a medium size pack of Nevermore attacked the eastern perimeter wall and there are reports of light damage, but no casualties," Lisa continued, her tone changing to a steady monotone.

"Animals always show their true colours in the end," said a gruff, disdainful voice behind them. "It doesn't matter how tame they look or how tightly you've got them on a leash."

Ruby's queasy feeling settled into nausea and she turned around to find Cardin and the rest of his team standing behind them.

Blake kept staring down at her food, shoveling it into her mouth without turning or speaking, though her knuckles were going white with the intensity of her grip on the fork.

Giving her faunus teammate's shoulder a gentle squeeze, Ruby rounded on Cardin, hands at her hips, jaw thrust out belligerently.

"Hey, jerkface!" She called out. "Leave my B- my team mate alone!"

Cardin looked at Ruby, his own team and then back at Ruby and burst out laughing.

"Or you'll do what, pint-size?" He chuckled. "Send your little pet after me?"

"Who was on the ground after the fight in class, shit-for-brains?" Yang spat.

Cardin grinned smugly.

"Pretty sure it was little sister, blondie."

Yang's chair toppled over as she rose with an incoherent snarl of rage, but Weiss was quicker and put a hand against the blonde's sternum.

She couldn't physically halt Yang, of course, since she was all tiny and cute, but the gesture carried such implacable authority that Yang stopped in her tracks as Weiss strode smoothly up to Cardin Winchester.

"You…" She said, managing to infuse the pronoun with so much disdain that Ruby could've sworn she heard it pattering down onto stone floors. "Are such an imbecile."

Cardin blinked and his grin flickered for half a second at most before reasserting itself.

"Maybe but I'm not the one consorting with beasts."

All expression dropped from Weiss' features. The anger, the irritation, the disgust. Everything, leaving behind a smooth, cool mask that for once meant the nickname Ice Queen was kind of appropriate.

"I suppose you would know all about the consequences of such a thing, wouldn't you?" She said.

"You-" Cardin's hands clenched into fists, face flushing with his fury. "You - You don't talk-"

With a sharp, knife-edge smile, Weiss went in for the kill.

"Didn't granny teach you to articulate properly?"

Ruby wasn't even sure what was going on, but Cardin's arm suddenly lashed out.

Unfortunately, he had been far too busy visualizing his fist smashing into Weiss' face to realize how she'd set him up. Or to notice the glyph glowing under her feet.

Before he'd even gotten halfway, Weiss shot up off the ground and her knee smashed up into his chin with vicious impact. Cardin's head snapped back and he was lifted off his feet. Weiss's momentum carried her past him until another glyph appeared mid-air and the heiress pushed off it with her legs, shooting back towards the ground and Cardin's prone, airborne body.

She caught him by the face and added her momentum to his, smashing his head his head straight down into the stone floor with another meaty sound of impact and the crunch of cracking stone.

Weiss leaned in close to Cardin where he lay on the floor, blinking groggily up at her. Her voice carried clearly across the deathly silent hall, a snarl underlying the crisply spoken words.

"One day I am going to inherit the most influential and powerful company in all of Remnant. You should take that into account and consider the ramifications of making me your enemy before harassing my team. "

She rose smoothly and, completely disregarding Cardin, whose team was slowly pulling him up to his feet and away, she settled back into her seat, snagged a chicken drumstick off Yang's plate and bit into it.

"His grandmother?" Blake asked, voice soft.

Weiss grimaced as she swallowed a mouthful of chicken.

"Her maid put arsenic in her coffee." She paused for a moment, as if choosing her words carefully. "Her faunus maid."

Blake didn't speak but bobbed her head once.

"She was a… reasonably pleasant woman. Her husband, on the other hand… Knowing him, the maid probably had a very good reason to do what she did."

"Still," Yang interjected. "Don't get me wrong, nothing makes me happier than seeing his stupid face smashed to pulp, but that was really ruthless."

Weiss put the bare chicken bone back on Yang's plate and wiped daintily at her mouth with a napkin.

"Yes."

"I just didn't know you had it in you, I guess."

"So... " Nora said, in a tone of voice that clearly said she wanted to change the subject. "How are you guys dealing with the cold situation? Because Pyrrha had this great idea that we'd snuggle up and it was so much better!"

She paused for a quick breath, then added in a stage-whisper. "She's kind of a kicker, though."

Pyrrha's smile looked kind of strained and she glanced towards Jaune.

"Yes. Everything has worked out brilliantly."

Ruby suspected secondary motives. Scheming.

"At least Ren doesn't kick," Jaune said. His voice came out a little thick, as though he'd caught a cold.

Ruby frowned at him and then at her own team. It wouldn't do for any of her team to get sick like Jaune had. Okay, so they were made of sterner stuff than he was - probably - but it was still her duty as leader to keep them healthy.

If they got sick, their combat efficiency would suffer and they wouldn't be able to study. Plus, Yang got really gross whenever she was sick. Nope. Not acceptable. Something would have to be done.

Ruby snatched a napkin from Yang and began to doodle a design for Fort Awesome.

"I think… I'm going for a walk," Blake said, rising and taking her half-finished plate.

Ruby felt a sting of worry but when Blake wanted to be alone she would be alone, one way or another, whether they wanted to find her or not. Pushing only meant she'd stay away longer. Except that one time with Yang, but that was the sort of thing that made the jealousy monster come up and play, so Ruby tried not to think of that.

She considered her sketch. To fix everything, she'd need her tools. Probably some rope. Blake tended to have some of that laying around. Ruby didn't want to speculate on why.

"Anyone wanna head down to the forge and get some stuff?"

Yang's face immediately brightened.

"Ooh. Yeah! I've wanted to fix up my babies ever since you showed me that improvement you thought up and-"

Weiss put a hand on her shoulder and said, in a tone of utter finality:

"No."

"But-"

"No. You've already put off Professor Port's homework and you promised you'd do it today so we're going to go to the library."

Yang's shoulders sagged and she tried her best to look pathetic. Weiss remained unaffected.

"I guess that's a bust," Yang said glumly. "See you later, Rubes?"

Ruby nodded.

"We should do a sleepover tonight," she said. "Celebrate that you've done all your homework or something."

"It's a dorm," Weiss pointed out. "Every night is a sleepover."

"Not the same," Ruby insisted. "So not the same."

"Sounds awesome," Yang said, talking over whatever Weiss had meant to say.

She typed something out on her scroll and a few seconds later, it beeped.

"Blake's in," she reported.

Weiss sighed and grabbed the blonde by the arm, firmly dragging her away.

"Noooooo," Yang cried out in an overdramatic falsetto that had most of the hall staring at her and the red-faced Weiss. "Saaaave me, Ruby!"

Eh. She'd be alright.

The Forge, located in the bowels of Beacon academy was easily the coolest place in the entire school and Ruby's favourite place to be except the dorm… And maybe the library if Blake was in a snuggly sort of mood. Anyways, it was positively ginormous and let the students do just about everything weapon-related.

The room was kind of T-shaped. There were rooms for electronics, wiring and other technical stuff, large tables down one side for engraving and finer aesthetic details on weaponry and, at the far back, large contained forges that even let the students dustforge steel.

Ruby inhaled slowly through her nose, taking in the scent of gunpowder, dust and something thick, sweet and coppery behind that, that she couldn't identify. It was always a little bit too warm for comfort, a little dirty and loud but she loved it all the same.

It wasn't closed on Saturdays, but none of the more explody of the machines were active without mastersmith Mina Creft around to monitor them and, unusually, the place seemed entirely deserted.

Ruby closed the door behind her and most of the light coming from the corridor behind her died down. A few of the fluorescent lights overhead worked and some were flickering, but most were as dead as Weiss' sense of humour.

Fumbling behind her, Ruby managed to find the lightswitch, though that didn't do anything but plummet the area she was in into complete pitch darkness. She flicked the light switch again and the light tubes buzzed to life like locusts.

It was eerily quiet, still as the grave, with nothing but the slow, rhythmic wheezing moan of the vents, and the solid thunk, thunk, thunk of her combat boots on the concrete.

Ruby slowed her steps as she moved into another patch of shadow. There was something ahead, something sharp, gleaming… Like the nightmarishly wide gaping maw of a beowolf, scarlet teeth bared to savage tender flesh.

She edged a step closer, then another, horribly aware that she should just run, that she didn't even have Crescent Rose with her. Her heart pounded frantically in her chest and some suicidally curious part of her made her edge another step closer, to reveal that a large circle-saw.

She burst out laughing in sheer nervous reaction, giggling as she pressed on.

In a stroke of illogical logic, the lockers were at the far end of the building, a little bit off the forges, to the left. She fiddled with the combination lock for a while in the dark, distracted by the slow, thick-sounding patter of water dripping down the piping somewhere in the dark.

The pipes were probably rusting or something, judging by the smell. Oh well. She'd tell maintenence as soon as they fixed the frickin' heating. Ruby smiled as the lock clicked open, grabbed her toolbox and set off back to the dorm.

"What in the name of…?" Weiss snapped, a couple hours later. "Ruby Rose! What on earth is the meaning of this?"

Ruby pushed aside the drape that she'd repurposed as the door for Fort Awesome and poked her head out to find Weiss in the doorway, hands at her hips, staring down at her in disapproving judgement.

"Oooh hi Weiss," Ruby chirped, jumping out into the room. "Sooo… What do you think, eh?"

Pale blue eyes glided over her masterpiece.

She'd pulled down the beds and leaned them up against the walls in the corner just to the left from the door. Two of the mattresses were inside and the other two she'd turned into the roof, using blankets and all of their fluffiest sweaters and jackets to complete the wall, with a couple of blankets left for the bed inside. She'd even incorporated the two bookcases Blake needed for her collection inside of the fort to have somewhere to put drinks or snacks. The books had been piled a foot high to help form the fortress wall closest to the windows, where most of the cold seeped in.

"Weiss, you're blocking the do- Holy crap, Ruby."

Ruby grinned at Yang, who was peering over Weiss' shoulder at her creation, holding a plastic bag in each hand.

"Cool, right?"

"Uh. It's… Certainly something."

They were silent for a while and an uneasy feeling settled in Ruby's tummy. Didn't they like it?

"It looks cozy, though," Yang said, "Don't you think, Weiss?"

"Well, I certainly - ouch." Weiss winced as Yang stepped past her, accidentally treading on her foot. "It looks quite hospitable, yes."

Okay, so maybe she'd been worrying for nothing.

"Come on in," Ruby insisted, holding the 'door' open. "What's that you got there, Yang?"

Her sister grinned and held up the bags. They clinked.

"I talked to Coco and got us some supplies for tonight."

Weiss re-directed her Scowl of Supreme Scepticism towards the bags and peered inside. Her eyebrows rose.

"We are not allowed alcohol in the dorms," she noted even as she pulled out a bottle of vodka. "And if we are to break that rule, must we do it with this swill?"

"Yepp. It's traditional… And I couldn't afford anything nicer."

Weiss set aside the vodka and pulled out a bottle of wine and a bottle of whisky, frowning at each name in turn.

"If you keep me up to date on your current idiocy I will be better able to… Assist you."

The door opened before Yang had a chance to fire back and Blake came in. She looked tired, almost as bad as that time when they'd been trying to stop The White Fang during the first term.

She almost sank down along the door when she closed it, cast one look at the Fort and then she grabbed the whisky, uncorked it and took three long pulls. Yang quickly took the bottle back.

Coughing and refusing to meet anyone's eye, Blake swept aside the curtain-door to Fort Awesome and vanished into the dark.

"What in the world?"

Yang made to follow her partner but Ruby stepped in front of her.

"Just gimme a few minutes, kay?"

Lilac eyes narrowed but Yang stepped back.

"A few minutes," she repeated, nodding.

Ruby slipped inside of the fort. It was still light outside and enough daylight slipped through the drape that she could navigate to the dark-haired bundle at the far corner without lighting any of the flashlights and lanterns she'd brought for later in the evening.

She kicked off her boots and slipped under the blankets too, slowly moving in closer until she lay pressed along the length of Blake's back. Blake didn't cry, but Ruby could feel her shaking and slipped her arms around her middle, squeezing her lightly.

A minute went by or maybe it was ten.. Ruby wasn't sure but eventually, Yang came inside. She stood in the doorway for a little while and then she came over, squeezing herself in between Blake and the wall.

"Hey there," she said.

"Hey," Blake replied. Her voice sounded raw.

"You don't look so good, kittycat."

"I don't feel good,"

"I know. You don't have to talk about if you don't wanna, but in case you do…" She bent down and placed a kiss in between Blake's dark, fuzzy ears. "We'll all listen to you if you need us to, kay?"

Blake's hair shifted as she nodded and Weiss came up.

"Here. Drink."

Ruby untangled herself from Blake - slightly - and the girl sat up, accepting a glass of soda and, judging by the smell, some vodka from Weiss. She sipped it and gave Weiss a thankful smile.

Yang clapped her hands together, grinning.

"Right. I think it's time we take a night off and relax." She grabbed the bottle of wine and handed it to Ruby, then drank some whisky straight out of the bottle and smacked her lips.

"Take it slow with that one. If you end up puking in any of the potted plants again, I'm not cleaning up after you."

Ruby nodded grudgingly.

"We might as well make a proper slumber party out of this," she continued. "Soo Weiss. Truth or dare?"

Snow white eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch but Weiss settled on the mattress.

"Truth."

"Oooh-"

"And behave!"

Yang's grin faltered but only by a fraction.

"Aww. Fine. Why do you wear your ponytail to the side like that?"

"Because it annoys father," Weiss said, shrugging daintily. "He would prefer it if I were more… Proper."

"More proper?" Yang blurted, eyes twinkling merrily. "Is that even physically possible?"

Weiss made a face.

"Just wait until you meet my sister. Ruby. Truth or dare?"

"Um. Truth? Yes, truth!"

"That packet of Atlesian cookies that I had for about a day and that then mysteriously vanished. Did you eat them?"

Ruby flushed. "Uh. Nooo. I - uh - I don't know what happened to those tasty little things."

"In case anyone needed a demonstration of what happens when you lie - here you go. Drink, Rubes," Yang said.

Ruby pouted at her sister but dutifully took two sips of the wine. It wasn't bad. A little sourer than she would've prefered, but at least it wasn't as bad as the beer she and Yang had celebrated her acceptance to Beacon with. Taking the opportunity for sweet revenge, Ruby turned to her sister.

"Yang. Truth or dare?"

"Dare."

The answer was all but immediate. Yang never backed down, especially in matters of truth or dare. She considered her options, then proclaimed:

"I dare you to serenade Weiss."

Yang blinked and frowned, humming softly under her breath on a couple of different songs before coming to a decision. She shifted closer to her intended target, sipped some more of her whisky, and then began to sing.

Ruby had always loved Yang's voice. Probably from back when they were kids and Yang would read to her but she couldn't carry a tune if she had a bucket. Not even if she had two.

Weiss expression of uncertain awkwardness quickly morphed into one of painful cringing as Yang butchered the notes of her favourite love song with the same gleeful intensity as she'd treat grimm. She'd only just gotten to the chorus when Weiss leaned forward and firmly put a finger to the girl's lips.

"Shh.. I think that's enough for now. Thank you, though."

Yang didn't seem to mind her lack of appreciation and turned over to Blake. "Your turn, Blakey. What do you say?"

"Truth."

Blake sounded a little distracted still. Ruby gave her hand a squeeze under the blankets pooled across their laps. Yang… Well, she kept acting like herself.

"Jaune, Neptune, Sun. Kill, screw, marry. Go."

Blake's eyes widened to an almost comical degree and the corner of her mouth quirked up a little. She gave Ruby's fingers a little squeeze in return and seemed to consider it.

"Well.. Sun and Neptune don't strike me as the kind to settle down. Jaune might make a good housewife, though."

Yang chortled. "I could see him wearing an apron and we know he can rock a dress."

Blake nodded thoughtfully.

"A sexless marriage to Jaune, sleeping with Sun on the side… and Neptune bites the bullet."

She eyed an affronted-looking Weiss with a significant, prompting look.

"Fine. Dare. Do your worst, Belladonna."

That prompted a grin from Blake, the first one that night.

"Show us what you keep hidden in the hollowed out book you keep by your bed."

Weiss' mouth fell open and her face coloured rapidly.

"I-" She shook her head and drank her forfeit, refusing to meet anyone else's eyes.

Having been unfortunate to be refilling Yang's sock drawer once, Ruby could guess just what Weiss wasn't willing to talk about.

Blake turned out to have no mercy. "It's okay, you know. Everybody does it."

Weiss pointedly buried her face in her pillow, though Ruby could hear her name and the words truth or dare being muttered along with a few choice Atlesian swear-words.

"Dare," Ruby proclaimed as Weiss resurfaced with a vindictive look on her face.

"Fine, then. Ruby. Go to Blake's bookshelf, wherever that happens to be right now, and find the book aptly disguised as a textbook on human anatomy. Then read one of the dog-eared passages for us."

Now it was Blake's turn to seem to want to hibernate somewhere out of sight, under the covers, and Weiss who looked smugly superior.

"You don't have to read it if you don't want to, Ruby," the faunus said, sounding almost desperate.

Ruby just smiled at her.

"It's fine. How bad could it possibly be, huh?"

She headed outside and scanned the pile of books until she found the one she'd been tasked to locate.

Flipping it open, she noted that the real title read: Ninjas of Love - Seas of Lust. Oh boy. As Weiss had instructed, she found a dog-eared page by random and settled back under one of the blankets. It was already noticeably warmer inside Fort RWBY 1 - Winter 0. Suck it, mother nature.

"Okay… So…" Ruby cleared her throat. "Deirdre's breasts shone with per-perspiration and her cries were muffled as she suckled on his finger - oh dear."

Yang looked like Christmas had come early. Weiss' expression was hard to read. So was Blake's, but not because of any poker face or anything, but because she'd hidden behind Yang.

Dialogue came up and Ruby tried her best imitation of a man's gruff, booze-roughened voice.

"'You can scream as much as you want, lassie, ain't nobody gonna care.'"

Yang stifled a giggle and Ruby continued.

"And scream Deirdre did as the pirate captain's mast plundered her treasure cave, letting the entire ship hear her pleasured cries without shame or concern - goodness Blake, what is this?"

Ruby continued reading and the story got less anatomically believable the further she got.

By the time she put the book up onto one of the shelves, Blake had all but disappeared behind Yang and seemed to consider if she could use her semblance to get through the floor.

"Welp…" Ruby said. "That was interesting. There was some stuff you didn't cover in The Talk in there, Yang."

"That's because I didn't know what a perv Blake was," Yang said, though there wasn't anything judgemental in her tone.

"Huge perv," Ruby agreed, sticking her tongue out at Blake. "Truth or Dare, sis?"

"Same as always," Yang said, leaning her head back onto Blake's shoulder. The faunus gave her a playful shove and rejoined the loose circle they'd formed while Ruby pondered her choices.

"Ooh. Go into team JNPR's dorm and flash Jaune."

Yang's eyebrows climbed, more from amusement than shock, by the looks of things.

"No dares outside of the room," Yang said firmly. "And come to think of it, no dares that might make Pyrrha want to murder us."

They all shared a chuckle at that and Ruby bit her lip, thinking.

"Okay. Since you were so eager to give Weiss a show earlier, why don't you do it properly now?"

Yang scoffed in disdain. "Please. Easy peasy."

"Now hang on a moment," Weiss protested, even as Yang crawled over towards her on all fours. "I do believe I want a say in this and-"

Yang settled in front of her and slowly pulled up her shirt. Ruby couldn't really see anything from where she sat at the side, but Weiss' eyes widened and her protests faded into silence when Yang's breasts gave a little bounce as they were freed from her shirt and bra.

Yang let her stare for a few seconds, then put the shirt back on and gave Weiss' nose a light flick. Weiss glared.

"You don't have to look quite so smug!"

"You don't have to make it so easy," Yang countered, laying back down on the mattress.

"Blake. You're up."

"Dare, I suppose," Blake said.

"Okay…" Yang took a moment to think. "I dare you… To kiss Ruby."

Both of the aforementioned girls turned to stare at Yang, then at one another. Ruby's heartbeat sped up to a skitterish pitter-patter and heat that had nothing to do with the alcohol spread over her face.

"I… Okay," she mumbled, then frowned. "Uh… Is it okay, Blake?"

Blake's smile was so brief you'd have needed a video recording to catch it, but it was there. She nodded.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Weiss' wide-eyed expression and Yang's self-satisfied smirk. Blake didn't seem to want to make the first move so Ruby crawled on over, noting as she did that her arms weren't feeling quite as steady as they usually did. The fourth of the wine bottle missing probably accounted for that.

She plopped herself down in Blake's lap, looking up at her.

"Is it okay if I just-?" She edged an inch closer and Blake closed the rest of the distance.

The kiss was a lot like their first ones, slow, cautious, neither wanting to commit too far and risk scaring the other off. She was more patient than Ruby and seemed to enjoy making her step things up first, which she always did.

This time wasn't an exception. If anything, Ruby caved quicker than she usually would, swiping the tip of her tongue against Blake's lips, tasting the sweet sting of the vodka and soda.

Blake's hands tangled into Ruby's hair, nails gently scraping along her scalp and it wasn't until Weiss cleared her throat as obnoxiously as was humanly possible that Ruby remembered the part where they had an audience.

"Well… I guess we can't say you chickened out on that one," Yang said, her eyes a little wide.

Laughter lurked somewhere behind her words, though. Weiss was still staring at them and the alcohol gave Ruby enough confidence to wink at her. The heiress' bottom lip had slight indentations in. Teethmarks.

Blake reached for the bottle of vodka, knocked it over, and righted it again before grabbing it, uncorking it and swigging. Then she sighed, smacked her lips and turned to face her a partner with a dangerous, playful glint in her eyes.

"In the spirit of getting friendly and in the spirit of team bonding, why don't you show Weiss some appreciation?"

Yang smirked right back.

"First of all, kitten, you gotta ask me if I even want a dare. Second, I am the undefeated master of this and I do - not - back - down."

"Oh, we'll see about that."

"Do I even get a say in this?" Weiss said, sounding unusually small.

Yang licked her lips and moved on over to her.

"Nope," she said. "Why… Don't you want to get bit of smooching in? Just imagine how upset daddy dearest would be."

That seemed to tip the scales and Weiss didn't resist when Yang pulled her up into her lap, one pale leg splayed on either side of her hips. Their lips met in a kiss that was all hunger and aggression and Weiss pressed closer within only a few seconds.

It got a bit awkward to watch them fight for domination and shoving their tongues down one another's throats after a while, though, and Ruby looked over to Blake instead. They exchanged a knowing smirk and once more clasped hands under the covers.

Yang's and Weiss' parting wasn't quite like that of a plunger or anything, but Ruby made the cartoon-ish sound effect in her head anyways. Their lips were swollen and glistening in the wan light and they were both breathing heavily.

"I must know," Weiss panted. "Where did you get it done?"

"Eh?"

Pretty, manicured nails - the secret of which Ruby really needed to hunt down one day - were pointed in an almost accusatory gesture at Yang's chest.

"Your breast job. It's remarkable how well it's done. Where did you do it?"

"Hey," Yang protested, sounding genuinely affronted. "Way rude. They're not fake. You know what, princess. Have a feel and get some… What did Oobleck call it, Blake? Empirical evidence, that's it. Come have yourself some empirical evidence. On the house. I dare you."

Weiss swallowed. Her gaze darted to Blake, then Ruby, though it wasn't really clear if she was asking for permission or pleading for help.

Yang bore down on her like she was prey, back straight, chest thrust forward. She chucked out of her jacket, carelessly discarding it in a corner.

She beckoned with a finger and Weiss drew closer like the fly to the fire as Yang pulled her top off, once more baring herself to them. There was something captivating about it all, a kind of energy to it. A heat that drew Ruby's eyes, too.

Weiss hesitated at the last second and Yang made an impatient noise, grabbed both of her fine-boned hands and placed them on her breasts.

With an expression somewhere in between reverent and gleeful, Weiss squeezed and Yang drew in a sharp breath through her nose. Eyebrows rising, lips curving up into a smirk, Weiss scraped a fingernail along a pink, puffy nipple.

"Oh dust, that feels so good," Yang moaned.

Weiss froze, eyes wide, like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. Her mouth fell open as Yang burst out laughing. She laughed so hard she could seemingly barely breath, falling back into Ruby's lap.

"The look… On your face," she wheezed. "Oh Weiss, you're so easy."

Ruby grabbed the hem of Yang's shirt and restored her sister's modesty. Blake had been staring a little harder than she felt comfortable with.

Weiss looked kinda scary, though. Angry, but like she might just pounce on Yang right then and there. She was really pretty like that, even if it made Ruby edge away just a little.

"Well, you weren't lying," Weiss said, her words clipped and precise. "Ruby. Truth or Dare?"

It was probably a good idea to see if she could make things calm down a little.

"Truth."

Weiss looked disappointed. She probably had a good dare prepared. Well, tough luck missy. She spent half a minute thinking, fingers drumming along the neck of the bottle she was sipping from.

"Fine," she groused. "Have you kissed Blake before? Because that looked like something you'd done before."

Blake gave Ruby's fingers a tentative squeeze under the blankets. Ruby squeezed back. They had meant to tell the rest of the team soon, either way. Maybe it was time.

"No. It wasn't the first time. We've been - uhm - kinda doing it for a while. Except, you know, not doing it. Not yet, anyways."

She looked at Blake for some sort of confirmation and Blake provided, pulling Ruby in close to her side. Yang, for once, had enough sense not to push things.

"We don't know what to call… This," Blake said, picking her words carefully. "It's nice, though."

Ruby grinned at her and kissed the older girl's cheek.

"Really nice," she agreed. "No tattling to dad, though. I wanna tell him myself."

"Fine, fine," Yang grumbled. "Your turn, Ruby."

"Oh. Uh. Blake. Truth or Dare?"

White teeth glinted in the dark.

"Dare."

Ruby took another gulp of liquid confidence.

"I dare you to do a… Uh-" She frowned, ransacking her memory for the word. "A bodyshot. On Weiss."

Blake looked at her, hunger and concern warring for dominance in her features.

"And you'd be okay with that?"

"Yeah. Duh. I wouldn't have dared ya to if I didn't, silly."

Maybe she should have been against the idea herself. Maybe it should've made her jealous to picture it, but it didn't. It just made her tingle all over with excitement.

"Let's move the covers away from the mattress," Blake instructed, bringing her bottle along with her as she moved over to Weiss. "Lay down and stay still so we don't spill."

At no point did she ask and Ruby shuddered at the tone of her voice.

"Okay," Weiss' said, her voice small and breathless, almost meek.

She did as she'd been instructed and lay down, arms at her side, while Blake managed to turn clumsy crawling along the mattresses into a kind of sensual stalk.

Settling the bottle beside the edge of the improvised bed, Blake straddled Weiss' hips and began to push her dress up, baring inch after inch of smooth, slender legs.

Ruby had expected Weiss' underwear to be a lot like the girl herself. Elegant, pristine, white. Okay, so she'd thought a bit about Weiss' underwear from time to time. That wasn't that weird, was it?

As it turned out, she'd been wrong. The underwear was black, lacey, and just shy of translucent.

"Racy," Blake commented, looking over her shoulder to make sure everyone had a clear field of vision as she kept raising the hem of the dress until they could see the outline of Weiss' ribs.

"Way to go, Weiss," Yang said. "Never thought you had it in ya."

"Your approval means the world to me."

She seemed to want to say something else, probably something snarky, but the words cut off into a sharply drawn sigh when Blake poured the vodka.

Moving a little to the side, to present a clear view for her spectators, Blake, then bent down and pressed her lips to Weiss' belly button. Her tongue darted out, slowly lapping the alcohol up.

Blake bared her teeth and bit down, catching Weiss' pale skin between sharp teeth. She grinned at Ruby and then wrenched her jaw sideways. Blood spattered the sheets as the skin ripped, steaming in the cool air. Ruby blinked and by the time she opened her eyes again, the blood was all gone. She shook her head, dazed, and looked at the bottle in her white-knuckled grasp. It was more than half-way empty, so no wonder she'd dozed off for a moment there.

Weiss was fine. More than fine, really. Her hips were raised off the mattress, the lean muscles of her thighs and belly taut and quivering.

"Enough, Blake," She panted. "It's all gone. You're done and -"

Again, her words cut off into an almost pained groan when Blake pursued a few stray droplets with a long, slow swipe of her tongue.

"As you wish," Blake said, rising and leaving Weiss laying on her back, still at display with her bare thighs trembling. It took her a couple of seconds before she'd gathered herself enough to yank the dress down again and even longer to sit back up.

Looking pleased with herself as she settled back next to Ruby, Blake turned over to Yang with a grin that she quickly found mirrored by her partner.

"I think I've got a dare that you won't do," Blake said.

"Oh it is on. Do your worst, Belladonna."

"Yang Xiao Long," Blake said. "I dare you to shave yourself bald."

It was always nice to see Yang taken by surprise. Mostly because it was so usual and looked really cute on her when her eyes went all wide like that.

"What my…" She shook her head and the aforementioned golden locks bounced. "That's not… That's not fair."

Blake shrugged and her voice turned utterly heartless.

"I thought you were the undefeated master of this game. You don't have to do it."

Yang squared her jaw.

"Oh no. I'm doing this," she said. "But if I do, you're going to do dare in return."

Blake shrugged. "Fair enough."

"Just you wait."

And with that, Yang climbed out of their little hide-out and vanished into the bathroom. A few seconds later, the buzz of the electric shaving machine could be heard through the closed door.

"She's faking it," Weiss said, looking to each of her teammates in turn. "There is no way she'll do it, is there?"

Ruby shook her head. "No way. She loves her hair more than anything in the world."

The buzzing continued for a while longer and then went silent. A while later, the water began to run in the shower.

Blake's hand gave Ruby's knee a little squeeze under the covers. Weiss' slightly vacant gaze flicked between them and the drape that was the door of Fort Awesome.

She licked at her lips in a nervous tick Ruby hadn't seen her display outside of combat, poked her head through the curtain to check on the closed bathroom door and then looked back towards Ruby and Blake.

"So… Is it nice?" She flushed deep red. "You know…"

Blake's hand squeezed down on Ruby's leg again, this time a few inches above the knee.

"Being together?" Ruby asked, frowning. "Or do you mean kissing and stuff?"

"Yes," Weiss said and again, her gaze flicked nervously towards the sound of tinkling water.

"Are you sure you don't want to ask Yang?" Blake asked, sounding perfectly innocent. "I'm sure she'd be willing to show you once she's chickened out of her dare."

"Ugh, no," Weiss groaned. "Under no circumstance will that ever happen."

Blake's dark eyebrows rose.

"If you say so."

The sound of the water died down and a little while later, a broadly grinning Yang returned, with her golden locks still present.

"Told ya," Ruby said, giving Blake a nudge.

The faunus made a soft "Mmm" sound of agreement.

"That's a shot for you, Yang," she added.

"You've sorta still got all your hair, sis," Ruby said softly. "We can all see it."

Yang didn't seem to be upset at all and that just didn't happen. Ruby knew her sister had many good traits but she'd never been one to handle defeat very well… Which meant something bad was about to happen.

"Actually," Yang said.

Then she moved over to Blake and Ruby, wobbling just a little on the uneven footing provided by the mattresses, hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her shorts and pulled them down.

She didn't look even a bit awkward about it all, either, grinning down at Blake.

"You should've been more specific."

Blake was staring. Heck, even Ruby was staring, though not for the same reason. She'd… Well, she'd definitely done what she'd been told. Um. Only probably - hopefully not what Blake had meant.

"You…" Blake swallowed and tried again. "I can't believe you, Yang."

"What? You wanna feel it, too? Just to be sure?"

She probably did because her hand squeezed down reflexively on Ruby's thigh. Woah, when had it gotten that high up… And why hadn't Ruby even noticed?

"I'm… I'm fine, thank you," Blake said, her eyes, like Ruby's trailing along the smoothly shaven length of Yang's- Well, okay, so she peeked. She hadn't ever tried - That - herself, so she was just a bit curious.

"You still haven't proven anything to me, except that those things are as painted on as they appear," Weiss said from behind Yang.

"Weiss, you know she wouldn't lie about that-"

Too late. Her sister had already turned around - which was only marginally less mortifying - and sauntered over to Weiss. Well… As much as was possible with a pair of shorts halfway down your thighs.

"You are unbelievable," Weiss said, though there was as much reproach as there was awe in her voice.

She was sitting with her legs crossed and Ruby could see her shifting every so often, rubbing her thighs together. Her eyes were glued to Yang and she clearly didn't realize she was being watched.

Blake leaned in close to Ruby's ear, eager pants preceding her low whisper.

"I can smell how wet she is all the way over here."

Ruby felt a slow shudder run down her body at the words. Blake's thumb was pressing right up against her- oh. Oh...

"And you, too," she all but purred.

A whimper slipped past Ruby's lips before she could press them shut. She wondered if Yang could tell what was going on. Probably. Yang had like super big sister powers when it came to embarrassing Ruby and no restraint whatsoever about using them.

"For your forfeit, Blakey," Yang drawled. "You're going to spend the rest of this game naked. In Ruby's lap."

She didn't wait for Blake to comply and moved over to settle behind Weiss. Once there, her arms wrapped around the girl's slender form, pulling her in close. With a somewhat coy expression, Yang pulled the blankets up to cover both of their waists.

Blake stood up in front of Ruby, smiling down at her, and began to unbutton her shirt. She didn't rush things, going one slow button at a time, all the while letting the garment fall open more and more, baring pale skin and the outline of a black bra.

Yang was whispering something into Weiss' ear and though Ruby couldn't hear the words, she felt reasonably certain it was payback for the work-out incident.

Blake's pants went next and she purposefully threw them at Ruby with a teasing smirk. Her undies were bright yellow, in stark contrast to the bra, and for some reason Ruby found that completely adorable.

Hands that otherwise never wavered or shook did so at the straps of Blake's bra and she finally settled in Ruby's lap as instructed, pulled the blanket up over her shoulders, and took it off there.

Both Yang and Weiss seemed to… busy to care. Ruby couldn't quite see what was happening, but Yang's hands were clearly moving under the blankets, slowly roaming by the looks of things.

The rest of Blake's underwear was soon shed and thrown aside.

Amber eyes quested for Ruby's and at her nod, Blake pulled Ruby's tank-top up over her head and pressed their bodies together. The feel of naked, warm skin that close to hers distracted Ruby rather thoroughly from what may or may not be going on only five feet away.

Then Blake's hand pushed her skirt and underwear aside and whatever remaining thought-processes Ruby shattered. Somewhere, she heard Weiss make a noise and she peered over Blake's shoulder to find the girl laying in Yang's lap, facing them. Her head was thrown back, leaned into the crook of Yang's neck, her spine arched. Her skin had turned from pale white to a ruddy pink. Her eyes firmly shut and her face set in a grimace that was somewhere in between bliss and agony.

Her feet poked out from the blankets and her toes curled inwards as she whimpered something incoherent to Yang before slumping into a senseless pile. The hand that had been moving underneath the blankets slowed and then, once Weiss had stopped shuddering, it ceased moving altogether.

Ruby wasn't far behind her and clutched hard at Blake when her climax overwhelmed her. Time went by. She wasn't sure how much, but Blake held her steady until she recovered and cracked her eyes open.

"That… That was cool," she murmured sleepily. "We should do that again."

By the sounds of things, Yang and Weiss already were.

"You don't have to now," Blake said, catching Ruby's hand between her thighs. "Not if you

don't want to."

"I do, though," Ruby said. "Unless you don't?"

Blake smiled and her grip on Ruby's hand loosened.

"I do. Please."

Ruby happily obliged her. It took a while, but Blake was as patient as always, guiding her through it and directing her attentions when they were misplaced.

They fell asleep in a close pile, with Ruby and Weiss in the middle as the little spoons for no other reason that they were the smallest. Both Blake and Yang had agreed that it was sound logic.

Weiss smiled shyly as they lay there in the fading light of the last lantern's candle, brushing aside some of Ruby's hairs in an uncharacteristically tender gesture before her eyes drifted shut. Blake's warm embrace lulled Ruby to sleep a few minutes later and she headed straight for dreamland.

It was New Year's Eve and Ruby found herself back in her silly ladystilts and the dress Yang always forced her to wear for parties. The rest of her teammates were all dressed in similar attire and they stood close to one another, champagne flutes in hand, staring out from the balcony and into the vast, endless darkness ahead.

Fireworks lit up the sky in flashes of colour and high, sharp cracks. It was cold but with Blake at one side and Yang at the other, it didn't bother Ruby at all.


	4. Chapter Four

Everything was warm and soft when Ruby woke up.

Her head was throbbed in sync with her heartbeat, but it was uncomfortable, not painful. Blake had rolled up into a ball over the course of the night, though her fingers still rested on Ruby's hip and her pillow was still nice and cool.

She grabbed the pillow a little more tightly and snuggled into it. Her pillow moved, which was decidedly weird, but Ruby was too tired to worry.

Then her pillow cleared its throat, which was definitely un-pillow-like behaviour and enough for Ruby to blink her eyes open.

It turned out her pillow was Weiss. Who would've thought, right?

"Oh," Ruby said, slowly relinquishing her grip on her teammate. "Hi Weiss… And sorry."

"What are you doing?"

Weiss looked pissed. Crap, crap, crap.

"Uhm. Moving away? Maybe hiding."

Crystalline blue eyes were rolled at her.

"Come back here."

Ruby blinked.

"What?"

"Come back here. Lay down. Relax. We should all be beyond squeamishness at this point."

Ruby carefully crept back under the covers and lay her cheek back on Weiss' shoulder.

"I guess so."

There was a low, throaty groan and the frazzled mass of blonde curls that was Yang shifted and then sat up. The covers dropped down off her body, but she didn't seem to care.

She yawned, stretched and lay her cheek back down on Weiss' chest.

"Morning sleepyheads," she murmured. "Last night was fun."

Weiss looked from Yang, to Ruby and then back to Yang, her earlier confidence visibly fading as a familiar flush crept up pale skin.

"Y-yes," Weiss stuttered. "Yang… What're you doing?"

"What?" Yang asked. "Do you gotta get up?"

"No," Weiss said. "But I was thinking that it might be time to get dressed and there's professor Goodwitch's assignment and-"

"Nope," Yang said firmly, bodily wrestling Weiss down onto the bedspread and pulling the covers up over her again. "Boring. More snuggling, then coffee and breakfast, and then maybe, maybe we do the homework that's due Friday."

"Fine," Weiss said. "Later."

"Yeah," Ruby agreed, resuming her use of Weiss as a pillow. "Later's always better."

"You are all hopeless," Weiss said.

"Hopelessly cute," Ruby corrected her, earning herself a high-five from Yang.

Weiss probably would've complained more if Yang leaning over hadn't left her with a faceful of boobs.

"You're such a brute," she finally muttered.

Yang just waggled her eyebrows.

"And you love it."

"Keep - Oh - dreaming."

Yang's hands had gone suspiciously out of sight and there was an excited glint in her eyes. Ruby was in a very good position to note when her partner's breathing was picking up, with her cheek resting by her chest.

"What was that?"

Yang chuckled, giving the heiress a sultry look. She groped blindly behind her among the shelves for a moment and grabbed herself a bottle of water she'd apparently stashed there. She downed half of it in quick, greedy gulps and then draped herself over Weiss again, pressing the bottle's push-pull cap to the other girl's lips.

A little shiver ran down Weiss' body and she opened her mouth enough for Yang to begin to gently feed her the water. She did so slowly, patiently, staring down at Weiss all the while and the moment the bottle was empty she bent down and kissed the wet lips.

Ruby could feel heat spreading down her body, pooling low in her belly. At the same time, she felt like a voyeur peering in through the window, witnessing something she shouldn't and made to move back a little.

Weiss hand caught her by the shoulder before she could get anywhere.

"Stay. Please." There was something raw and unrestrained about the need in her voice and it made the heat trickle farther south. "That is, if you would like to and if Blake permits it and…"

Ruby glanced over her shoulder to spot Blake watching them with bleary amber eyes, one hand pressed to her temple. She made a pained sound, scooted a bit closer to Ruby to make up for the distance put between them earlier, then lay her head back on the pillow.

"Go ahead. I'll just watch for now."

Yang produced a second sport's bottle of water and gave it to Ruby, who drank before handing it over to Blake. The faunus girl savoured it slowly, draining the entire thing before groaning and closing her eyes again.

Weiss' fingers still rested on Ruby's arm and her eyes were intent. Well, up until Yang began to drop kisses along her throat, at which point they fluttered shut.

Heart pounding, Ruby leaned in and pressed her lips to Weiss' and found an immediate response. The fingers on her shoulder tightened their grip and soon Ruby also found herself on top of Weiss, with the heiress' body arching up against hers, one leg slipping in between Ruby's thighs.

Ruby mewled, pressing down, and then something buzzed on the bookshelf by their side.

"I think your vibrator's acting up, Weiss," Yang said, chortling.

"No, I left that - that is to say - I mean-" She made a sound of pure frustration, pushing at Yang. The larger girl didn't budge. "It's my scroll. Hand it over."

There seemed to be a potential argument imminent. Ruby kissed Weiss thoroughly. It proved a very effective deterrent and by the time the scroll was delivered, she didn't even muster an annoyed look in the blonde's direction.

She covered her scroll with one hand and typed the lengthy password out with the other, opalescent fingernails tapping the screen. One look at the message was enough for her facial expression to slip into perfect neutrality.

"My father," she said, scanning the message a second time before putting the scroll back onto the shelf. "Nothing of particular importance."

She held the covers up to her chest with one hand and then caught Ruby and the others looking at her. She let go and the sheets pooled in her lap.

Ruby found herself openly staring at the way the few wan shafts of sunlight poking through the curtains to the fort caressed the Weiss' alabaster skin, the way the cold winter air made the tips of her modest breasts tighten.

Weiss smirked, knowing they were all watching and clearly enjoying the attention.. Ruby was just about to pounce when Yang cleared her throat.

"Uh - as much as it blows to say this, I think Weiss might have a point. It's already past 10 and if we're gonna get any coffee before lunch, we'll need to get moving. Weiss, Blake. Do you mind showering first? I just want a quick word with Ruby."

"But-" Weiss grimaced. "Very well. Come on, Blake."

Ruby watched them go - because hey, pretty - though she didn't go as far as Yang did and give Weiss' bottom a smack. The bathroom door closed and a few moments later, the showers started up.

"Sorry," Yang said, looping an arm about Ruby's shoulders and pulling her in close. "I just thought… You know… A lot of stuff happened yesterday and you seemed okay with it, but I just wanted to make sure you were really, really okay with it."

Ruby tried to keep the annoyance off her face. She knew Yang meant well, that she only wanted to be a good sister and take care of her, but sometimes she needed to trust, too. She'd never been very good at that one.

"I am," she said. "Totally okay with it. It's… weird, you know, but it feels right somehow. It makes total sense."

She grinned a little sheepishly and Yang chortled.

"Yeah… Never really been a fan of chicks, you know, but Weiss is just too fun to get riled up."

"And she's pretty," Ruby added, giving her sister a significant look.

"And she's pretty," Yang agreed, sighing wistfully.

"We should go surprise them in the showers."

Yang's teeth glinted white in a wide grin.

"Aw yeah."

* * *

"You're such a party-pooper, Weiss," Ruby complained, pulling her boots on. "You're pooping all over the party. The party is officially dead."

Weiss straightened her dress and cast a thoroughly unimpressed look back at Ruby, clearly unconcerned about the shower she'd cut short.

"I always knew you'd be trying my patience, Ruby Rose, but I never expected it to be like… This." She checked her scroll. "Fifteen minutes before they close the cafeteria. Let's go."

"Fine," Ruby grumbled, "but I'm gonna getcha later and you'll be way sorry then."

Their eyes met in a moment of flashing heat.

"Later," Weiss promised.

They left their dorm behind. Beacon's corridors were quiet and empty, even more so than what was usual for a weekend morning. Ruby spotted Velvet hurrying along somewhere, ears drooping, but she vanished before she could say hi.

It wasn't until they made their way to the cafeteria that they knew something was wrong. The place was packed with students and even Professor Port was present, talking to Coco Adel, but very few of them were actually eating.

"So, what's-" Yang had barely opened her mouth before the tranquil morning silence was shattered by the distant sound of mortar fire.

Ruby flinched and felt Yang draw closer, her wary eyes scanning the room.

"Something is seriously wrong here," Ruby said, keeping her voice quiet enough that only her team could hear.

She caught Professor Port's eye and he finished his conversation with Coco and then walked over, his battle-axe slung over one shoulder.

"Girls!" He boomed, his tone jovial. "I see you are the last to join the party."

Ruby frowned at him.

"Party?"

He laughed again but it sounded a little bit hollow.

"There is a spot of bother at the walls, I'm afraid. Grimm attacks. It happens every other decade and it's nothing to worry about, but Ozpin is there taking charge of things and so we're keeping the cafeteria open. Help yourself to anything you'd like. It's tradional - why I remember in my youth we ran into a situation just like this-"

Yang cleared her throat and Port cut off.

"Sorry professor, but we're really, really hungry."

He smiled down at her.

"Not to worry, not to worry. You must keep your strength up in these troubled times, after all."

Still chuckling, he walked over towards team CRDL.

"It seems like a lot of effort to gather everybody here if there is no need for concern," Weiss noted, keeping her voice low.

"True," Blake said. "Especially if they're keeping us here."

They grabbed coffee and breakfast and settled at the edge of one of the tables, where they could had a couple of seats between them and a team of third years.

"We should go see what's going on," Ruby said, dumping two packets of sugar into her coffee.

Weiss' pale blue eyes fixed on her.

"No. You heard what he said. We are to stay put."

"We're huntresses, Weiss," Ruby said, speaking quietly. "We're supposed to be out there helping people."

"We're also supposed to follow orders."

Weiss looked down at her food and remained silent for several long moments.

"You're right," she said, sounding subdued. "And besides, you're the leader. We're supposed to follow your orders, too."

Yang's eyes glinted with mischief. She was in. Blake shrugged and slowly sipped at her coffee.

"Sounds like the right thing to do," she agreed. "We might need to steal a ship, though."

"Easy peasy," Ruby said, spearing a whole egg on her fork and shovelling it into her mouth.

Weiss cast her a mildly disgusted look.

"I cannot believe I considered sleeping with you."

"Youhe shtill conhidehing," Ruby countered, grinning broadly.

"I most definitely am not!"

Ruby swallowed her food. Blake was hiding a smile behind her hand. Yang wasn't bothering and most of the tension in the room seemed to be slipping off her team, which was good, because Ruby worried what they might encounter in Vale.

Once they'd eaten, they slipped out of the dining hall and headed straight through the deserted halls out onto the courtyard.

They found a lone bullhead standing at the docks and they had to run the last few yards to make it before the doors closed on them. The pilot looked back at them, eyes wide in near panic.

"You're not supposed to be here. Ozpin said-"

Blake disappeared in a cloud of inky shadows and reappeared a moment later in the empty co-pilots chair, her sword naked and laid across her lap. She smiled sweetly at him.

"We just need a ride."

The pilot swallowed and nodded, his face going pale.

"Uh - Yeah, sure. No problem, ma'am."

They spent most of the remainder of the flight in silence. Blake was beginning to look kinda greenish and Ruby settled for gently rubbing the back of her neck to distract her. She wasn't sure it did the trick or not but at least Blake refrained from any Jaune impressions.

They landed in central Vale and the moment they stepped foot on the landing pad, Ruby realized things were bad. Like, really bad. Worse than she'd ever seen for herself. She knew enough from history classes in school that the Grimm presence fluctuated.

Every so often, they would approach the walls en masse and on very rare occasions, some would get through, but this was different. The air was acrid with smoke and Ruby could see a few fires still raging. A firetruck stood abandoned, its tyres and hoses slashed. Store windows had been shattered and there was blood on the cobblestone streets but no bodies and no people.

"The Grimm didn't do this," Blake said softly. "People did."

Yang stepped up close to Ruby.

"Yeah... And this isn't the part of town they showed on the news yesterday."

"No, it isn't," Weiss agreed, nervously scanning the deserted streets. "What do we do?"

Ruby took a couple of long strides, by hers standards anyways, and turned to face them with her back straight.

"We go see if there's anybody who needs our help and kick the butt of anyone or anything getting in our way."

Yang made a whooping sound that Weiss seemed too ladylike to join in on. Blake did give her the thumbs up. It was something.

They set off down the streets with Ruby and Yang taking the lead. Weiss stayed at the center of the formation, with Blake bringing up the rear. The streets didn't remain deserted and within a few minutes they found a small crowd. Angry but not violent. Not yet, anyways.

They put away their weapons, moved closer to one another, and walked into the crowd. The causes were eclectic and there were calls for everything from justice for the faunus to a ban on violent video games. Ruby wasn't even to whom they were calling out and exchanged uneasy glances with her team.

"Look," Blake said, pointing ahead.

Ruby tracked the length of her gloved finger and spotted what she meant almost immediately. On the fringes of the crowd, huddled along the wall of a building, was a little girl. Eight, maybe nine years old. Her clothes were torn and shabby, her cheeks gaunt, and her eyes flitted back and forth like a frightened bunny.

Ruby weaved through the crowd and settled down next to her on the ground, moving carefully and slowly, keeping her voice soft.

"Hi there. Is everything okay?"

The girl shook her head. There were tears on her cheeks. Poor thing. Ruby remembered a time when she'd been about that age, scared and alone, up until someone had come and taken care of her.

"Don't worry. We're team RWBY and we're huntresses from Beacon." Ruby smiled up at Yang a little and put an arm around the young girl's shoulder. "We'll getcha back to your mom and dad."

Yang tried for a grin and hunkered down.

"Yeah," she confirmed, winking. "Might even get ya a burger on the way. Come on."

For the first time the girl smiled. It should've comforted Ruby to see it... but it didn't. Instead, a slow, cold shiver slithered down her spine.

She ignored the uneasy feeling and leaned over and enveloped the girl a hug. It always cheered her up so it should work for her too, right?

There was a gleam of silver at the corner of Ruby eye and then the girl spoke. Her voice was calm and smooth, the words strangely inflected, as though she wasn't quite used to the concept of a tongue, and entirely devoid of any emotion.

"My parents are dead and soon you will be, too."

"Ruby!"

Ruby jerked back but not before something jabbed into her ribs - hard. There was a smacking sound and the girl flew several feet back when Yang back-handed across the face. She turned to Ruby, looking down with wide scarlet eyes.

Ruby didn't dare look.

"Is it bad? I can't feel anything. Does that mean it's bad?"

Yang bent down, looking carefully and then burst out laughing, the sound high and almost hysterical. She pulled the knife clear of Ruby's clothes and showed her the unblemished blade.

"Your aura caught it, dumbass," she said, grabbing Ruby's hand and yanking her to her feet. "Now about that little shit-"

It wasn't until Yang looked over her shoulder that Ruby realized that the kid had scampered and that the crowd had gone eerily still. People were staring at them, their angry whispers buzzing like insects. One took a step forward. Then another. Uh-oh.

"Murderers!"

"Whores!"

Weiss edged a step backwards and closer to Blake, who turned and went back to back with her. Their swords chimed in unison as they were drawn from their sheaths.

From somewhere at the back of the crowd, a flask was lobbed. It hurtled through the air and Ruby was about to call out in warning until Weiss batted it aside with a contemptuous flick of Myrtenaster. The heiress' lips turned up into a mocking smile and she raised the weapon to guard.

They were surrounded and the crowd pressed in, spitting and snarling in an almost animalistic rage, pushing Ruby and Yang in closer to their team mates as they retreated.

"Guys," Ruby, holding her hands up. "Move back, okay? We don't wanna fight."

"Monsters!" An old woman shrieked.

Ruby only narrowly avoided the swing of the broken bottle the little old lady held in her hand

"Get back!" Yang warned sharply, gauntlets raised and pointed into the crowd.

"What do we do?" Blake asked, voice low and tense.

She kicked at one of the encroaching protesters who had gotten too close. Weiss beat a young man down with the pommel of her sword, the motion viciously practical.

"Ruby? What do we do?" The question came out sharper the second time around, almost panicked, and it wasn't until her name was thrown into it that Ruby realized she was the one supposed to make the call.

Something was clearly up with these people. Hysteria from the grimm attacks or drugs. It didn't matter. They needed to do something. She needed to do something before they hurt themselves or her teammates.

Ruby grit her teeth together and put Crescent Rose back in its holder, curling her hands into fists.

"We fight! Yang, you go front. Weiss, cover our backs. Blake, you take the left flank. I go right."

Yang darted forward on light feet, bobbed to the left out of the way of a swung cudgel and grabbed the large young man responsible by the shirt, bodily throwing him into two of his friends who'd come in from the side.

Blake appeared and disappeared in flashes of dark smoke, following Yang's advance smoothly and dissuading any who dared approach.

Ruby dashed out of the path of a length of pipe and it cracked the pavement where she'd stood only a second later. She dodged and weaved, moving back and forth to make sure nobody got past. Another knife flashed and Ruby's combat boots skidded on the paving stones, taking her just under the swiping motion of her attacker, and straight into the trajectory of a heavy work-boot.

It slammed into her in the stomach and for a moment, the world dimmed. That didn't stop Ruby from moving, though. She rolled lithely, out of the following stomping motion, and pushed herself up to her feet with her back and legs in a rising handspring.

Her breaths came in wheezing, painful gasps and everything was still spinning, but not so much that she couldn't dodge the man's lunge, kicking at his leg where his weight rested with enough force that it bent inwards with a vicious snap.

Someone grabbed her from behind and Ruby panicked, slamming her elbow back as hard as she could, again and again, until the fingers on her forearm slackened.

A young girl - no more than a few years older than Ruby herself - screamed as she tore at her face with her bare hands, nails flashing. Ruby lashed out on pure instinct, the way Yang had taught her, the way she'd honed in hundreds of hours of training and the girl's nose cracked beneath her knuckles.

She froze for a moment, horrified, staring at the moan on the ground, moaning in pain and clutching his broken leg, to the young woman with the smashed nose and blood covering her face. Ruby stared at her right hand. Blood dripped down her fingers and had spattered several inches up her wrist.

"Move, you idiot!" Weiss snarled, grabbing Ruby by the arm and yanking her along.

The Heiress had caught up and was moving ahead, Yang had broken through, leaving them to deal with the majority of the angry, roughed up but mostly whole mob. Ruby darted up to Yang and Weiss was only a few seconds behind.

A particular large man swinging a metal post with a piece of concrete still stuck to its end was the last to go down and behind him, the coast was clear.

"Go!" Ruby shouted, suiting actions to words and leading the way.

They ran for minutes, through alleys and parking lots, staying away from the main streets and crowds until they finally made their way into a little park. They took shelter there behind an old newspaper stand, breaths steaming in the cold air.

Blake's face had gotten paler and paler the longer they ran and she barely made it over to a couple of bushes in time before she toppled down on hands and knees to throw up.

Yang winced and made to move over, but Ruby forestalled her with a raised hand. Blake was her girlfriend, sorta, so holding back her hair was Ruby's job. She did just that, while Yang hovered nervously and Weiss fiddled around with her scroll.

By the time she was finished, Blake lay curled up into a ball on grass.

"You okay, Blakey?" She asked quietly, brushing sweaty dark bangs off Blake's forehead, carefully using her left hand..

She nodded but kept her lips firmly shut, as if she feared more throwing up would be the result if she spoke. Ruby sympathized. The blood on the fingers of her right hand made her own stomach twist and writhe.

"Here." Weiss hunkered down, offering Blake a handkerchief and a tin of breath mints.

Blake accepted both, smiling feebly, and clambered to her feet. She spat into the bushes several times and popped a mint into her mouth. They exchanged a look that was more than enough for the Blake to convey her gratitude and her thanks, even without the actual words.

There was a little store half a block away and they snuck inside, using the bathroom to wash up. Weiss was still on her scroll and went last, washing blood off her trembling hands. Yang was taking care of Blake, buying her a soda by the looks of things. Ruby snuck up behind Weiss, as much as one could do that in a small bathroom with a mirror, in any case, and embraced her.

It wasn't just Weiss' hands trembling, but all of her, and Ruby held on tighter, leaning over a shoulder to press her cheek against the older girl's.

"There there, Weissy," she said quietly.

She could see Weiss roll her eyes in the mirror.

"I'm fine, silly," she said.

That didn't stop her from turning around and returning the hug, though. They held on to one another for a while and Ruby was ready to let go when Weiss began to pull back. The Heiress had gotten a lot better about accepting physical affection, but she still did so on her own terms, and did not take kindly to Ruby being too clingy.

Blake stood with her hip leaned against the counter, watching herself in a mirror. Yang was browsing those utterly mystifying fashion-magazines. Outside, a young man was run down by the police through excessive use of their truncheons.

For a few, long silent seconds, they watched the unconscious man being carried off.

"What do we do now?" Ruby finally asked.

"I have spoken to my father," Weiss announced. "He should have the information we will need."

Blake frowned and reached into a pocket, coming out with a length of black silk.

"Maybe it'd be best if I-"

Weiss' fingers closed on her wrist.

"You don't have to. You shouldn't-"

Blake smiled almost tenderly at her and reached out as if to cup her cheek before glancing over to Ruby, blushing and catching herself. Her hand hovered a few inches away from Weiss' cheek for a few seconds before dropping.

It wasn't until she did so that Ruby realized she'd been holding her breath in anticipation and that the tiny gesture had her heart racing. Was it weird to ship her girlfriend with her teammate? Probably, right?

"It's fine," Blake said. "In case we run into some racist-flavor of crazy out there."

Weiss mouth formed into a line but she conceded the point with nod.

"Very well. Let's go."

* * *

The headquarters of the Schnee Dust Company was located right in the middle of downtown, a chrome-coloured looming skyscraper, that stood out even among the other large buildings at the heart of Vale.

Two men in dark suits stood at the entrance and kindly held open the door for them, even as they carefully observed all four of them. Ruby noted tension gathering in the set of their shoulders at the sight of all the hardware she and her team were toting. She saw one hand glide inside a suit jacket until the man's eyes settled on Weiss and widened in recognition.

He relaxed and stepped back again, once more looking unremarkable and vigilant at his post by the door.

The interior was as cold and sterile as a hospital room, muted white and gray colours, steel and stone being the most prominent features in the furniture. Everything gleamed with cleanliness and reeked of extravagant elegance. It was definitely where Ruby would have envisaged Weiss working. Probably with an office of her own, a nice desk, maybe a business suit and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. Rawr.

She realized she'd gotten lost in thought only when she walked straight into a stationary Yang. They'd made it up to the reception-desk. A woman in early middle-age, with her hair in an elegant bun, was taking Weiss' instructions with a look of rapt attention, speaking to someone on the other side of her scroll. Judging by her expression, it was difficult to guess which of the two people had her more terrified.

After a brief conversation, which included a lot of "Yes sir" and nodding from the secretary, they were directed towards an elevator. They filed into it and the doors closed, sending them on their way without the need to press the button for any of the floors.

"Be polite," Weiss instructed them once the doors had closed on them. "Be careful. Don't speak if you're not spoken to. If you can avoid it, don't speak at all. I'll handle things."

There was fear in her voice. More than Ruby could easily remember hearing.

"It's just your dad," Yang said, laughing and punching Weiss' arm. "Pretty sure he's not gonna try to devour our souls or anything."

"I imagine he'll leave that to his lawyers," Blake filled in.

Weiss stomped her foot hard onto the floor.

"Do not joke. This is serious."

"We know that," Yang said. "We are taking this seriously. Seriously."

"We've dealt with dangerous men before, Weiss," Blake said.

"No," Weiss said, her voice hushed. "No you haven't. You've never dealt with a man like him before."

The elevator went silent and stayed that way until a soft 'Ding' announced their arrival and the doors opened up on a receiving area. It looked marginally more comfortable than the ground floor. There was a sofa in one corner along with an expensive-looking coffee machine. Magazines lay neatly piled on one of the tables.

Ahead, a pair of doors that Ruby felt certain would withstand the blast of a large bomb, and that still somehow managed to look elegant, blocked their path.

"I have a favour to ask of you," Weiss said, turning towards Blake.

The faunus girl blinked, then nodded.

"Ask."

Weiss blushed. She actually blushed. It was adorable. She hesitated for a few moments, then cleared her throat, and said:

"At some point during our conversation with Father, I would like for you to touch my shoulder. Just for a moment or two, but so that he notices."

Blake frowned. Her thinky-face. It was adorable, too.

"To imply a relationship between the two of us… Why?"

"To distract him. Unbalance him. Every little bit counts. Trust me."

"Alright," Blake said. "I'll do it."

Weiss nodded and smiled.

"Thank you."

Blake flashed her a rare smile in return.

The door opened slowly, stone grinding on stone, to reveal the office of Arctis Schnee, CEO of the Schnee Dust Company.

The office was was spartan. A large mahogany desk was the central feature of the room, set straight ahead of the doors, over by wall-to-ceiling windows that offered a fantastic view of the central business district of Vale.

Between the two large windows, directly behind the desk, an ornate broadsword hung on the wall, its design similar to Myrtenaster.

Other than art, all of it in varying styles, but all of it just as obviously priceless, the room only had a bookshelf and a filing cabinet in one corner with a couple of chairs next to it. Over by the other wall, a well-stocked liquor cabinet was the only piece of furniture. Everything was old but well maintained, polished to a sheen.

In the middle of that office, behind its desk, sat Arctis Schnee.

He was a man of early middle age, though it was difficult to say with his pure white hair. He was of average height and unremarkable build.

At the sight of them, he smiled and put down his scroll, rising.

"Weiss," he said, and his daughter walked up to him and into his embrace with an air of duty.

When they stepped apart, Weiss' dad turned his attention to the rest of them.

"A pleasure to meet you at last. Your reputations precede you."

Ruby decided to speak up before Yang did. Her sister never did very well with grown-ups and authority figures. Best not tempt fate.

"Hi, sir!" She said, stepping forward and offering out her hand. "I'm Ruby Rose, team leader of RWBY and Weiss' partner. Well, you know, like in the team and stuff. Not anywhere else. Except when we do pictionary because Yang and Weiss always start bickering and-"

Yeah… Maybe she should've let Yang talk.

Mr Schnee seemed to take it all in a stride, though. He reached out and shook Ruby's hand. His palm wasn't all silky smooth like she'd expected from a businessman. There were callouses, like the ones Weiss had from her swordplay, and his grip was firm.

"Miss Rose."

He gave her a nod and moved on to Yang, exchanging some basic pleasantries before finally coming to a halt in front of Blake.

"And Miss Belladonna…" He said. "The timing of your arrival is quite fortunate. The mayor of Vale sent me a bill he hopes to pass in a month's time. He wanted my opinion on it and I thought I would ask you for yours."

"Meaning you're actually the one writing it, huh?" Yang interjected.

Mr Schnee gave her a look that was disturbingly alike the one their father would give Ruby's sister whenever she made an inappropriate comment or crude pun, but didn't otherwise comment.

Blake frowned.

"I'm not sure I understand... Sir."

Mr Schnee gave her a warm, understanding smile. Again, it was almost fatherly.

"Of course. Come. I will show you."

He stepped back to his desk and opened one of the drawers, coming out with a thin stack of papers that had been clipped together.

"Please," he said, holding out his chair and offering it to Blake.

The faunus flushed and glanced towards Weiss, who gave her the slightest of nods, though her expression remained stony.

Blake sat down and began to scan the lines of text, eyebrows climbing with each second and each word read.

"This… Is a Faunus rights bill."

"Indeed. I thought an insider's perspective might be useful."

Blake's shoulders tensed.

"Perspective?" She said, hands clenched on the armrests of the Mr Schnee's leather chair.

"Because of your heritage…. And your history."

The door opened and Blake flinched, but the only one to come through was a butler in a dark suit. He carried a tray in both hands, heavily laden with beverages and a plate of the most gloriously chocolatey chocolate-chip cookies Ruby had ever seen in her life.

"Thank you, Frederick," Mr Schnee said.

The butler nodded, settled the tray on the desk, and departed without speaking.

"You know…?" Blake asked, voice trembling.

"I make it my business to know whom my daughter associates with, yes," Mr Schnee said, shrugging. "What do you think?"

Blake blinked and looked back down at the bill, then up to Mr Schnee.

"I - uh."

"You needn't worry," he assured her. "I know you're no threat."

A cold shiver went down Ruby's spine as the man let his facade slip for a moment. She picked up on a few details she'd missed earlier. His hands had scars at the knuckles. Layers of them. His intelligent blue eyes, the same eyes he'd passed onto his daughter, kept trace of them all, at all times.

And… The sword hanging behind his desk had dents and burrs in the steel from seeing actual use.

The way he spoke, Ruby was convinced that if he had deemed their faunus teammate a threat, they would've been short one member.

Blake lowered her head and kept on reading.

"Please help yourselves," Mr Schnee said, issuing at the plate that had been brought in.

Ruby stared at the cookies, mouth watering, contemplating the value of showing solidarity towards her girlfriend versus chocolatey goodness.

"The proposed minimum wage seems a bit low," Blake remarked.

"A first step in the right direction," Mr Schnee interjected smoothly. "We hope for more, of course, but the first step is crucial and more."

Blake kept on frowning, finger trailing along the paper before coming to a stop once more.

"The phrasing in the part about maximum working hours, especially when it comes to how many in a single day, seems to leave some loopholes."

Mr Schnee smiled at her.

"An oversight by the mayor, I am sure. Please mark it and I shall point it out to him."

Blake got out of the chair and walked back to them, settling next to Weiss and brushing the back of her hand along Weiss' shoulder. Mr Schnee cleared his throat.

"Onto business, then. You told me you had something specific in mind, Weiss."

Weiss nodded, stepping forward.

"We're investigating the civil unrest and I wondered if you knew anything about what was going on that could help us."

Mr Schnee settled into his chair and watched Weiss with a deepening frown.

"The civil unrest is a job for the police," he noted. "And as far as I am aware, no other Beacon students are patrolling the streets."

Weiss didn't miss a beat.

"We are investigating it… Independently."

"I see." Mr Schnee considered them for a few moments. "It is no great mystery. The grimm are like the stock market. If enough people believe it will fall, it does. If enough people believe the grimm will come, the ensuing panic will assure they do."

Weiss expression settled into a scowl.

"That is not exactly helpful."

Mr Schnee smiled slightly.

"I know."

"We need information, father. The sooner we stop this madness, the sooner the grimm attacks will cease and the sooner business returns to normal."

The last bit made Mr Schnee smile with something like pride.

"You make a good case," he admitted. "I had hoped to keep you out of this, but if you insist, then there is something you need to know..."

He brought out his scroll, fingers tapping rapidly. There was a flicker of light and a screen was projected onto the barren wall to the right of the door.

It showed Vale, represented in white against the background of blue oceans, black mountains and green for… Everything else, Ruby supposed. The walls were clearly marked out and outside of them, the area was littered with red dots, shining like little drops of blood.

Mr Schnee pressed a button and the display zoomed out, showing more of the areas around the city, like Mountain Glenn and its abandoned settlement. The farther out they got, the denser the red dots got.

Grimm, Ruby realized. They were looking at the local grimm population.

"This was a week ago, with the grimm levels at normal. This is six days ago."

Another press of a button and the display shifted. The red dots multiplied.

"Five days ago. Four."

He kept counting down and the grimm kept closing.

"And this was taken four hours ago."

Ruby stared and felt her stomach flip. The levels of grimm presence just beyond Mountain Glenn looked like that of the Wastelands that covered most of Remnant. If all those grimm were headed towards them…

"How long until they reach us?" Ruby asked, her voice came out shakier than she would've liked.

Mr Schnee shrugged.

"By the current rate of escalation, forty to sixty hours."

"But the city has defences," Yang argued. "They've dealt with this stuff before, right?"

"Yes. The Vale military and the Hunters will no doubt keep them at bay for some time, but against such numbers… The grimm are infinite, Miss Xiao Long. We are not. Nor are our supplies."

"You said you didn't want me involved," Weiss said. "Involved in what, specifically?"

"I have operatives working the problem. I am confident in their eventual success but…" His eyes drifted to Blake. "There are areas where they will find it difficult to gain the cooperation of the local population."

Blake chuckled darkly.

"I take it the faunus community isn't greeting your stormtroopers with open arms?"

Mr Schnee's smile sent a shiver of dread down Ruby's spine.

"Not yet."

With a flick of his fingers, the screen centered on Vale again. A few jabs marked spots, most of them around the industrial district, some of it bleeding into neighbouring areas.

"These are all the reported locations for the civil unrest. We do not know the cause but we are investigating any possible angle. Chemical and biological weapons, some sort of technology or, most likely, human foolishness."

Weiss nodded.

"We will go."

Mr Schnee nodded. "Good. Make me proud."

Weiss hesitated a moment. "I shall, father."

Ruby followed her team out through the doors to the office, her entire body numb. Two days. Maybe a little bit more if they were lucky.

She gripped Yang's elbow just to keep her footing.

If they didn't solve whatever it was - if anything at all - then Vale would be overrun. Everything and everyone she loved would die.

The elevator 'Dinged' as its doors opened and they all filed inside, beginning their slow descent. Ruby stared at her own blurry reflection in the steel walls.

What was she to do?

Oh God. What was she to do?


	5. Chapter Five

The attack came out of nowhere.

One moment everything was fine and dandy. Ruby was busily constructing the third wing of her sand castle and the next, her face was slammed down into the moat she'd dug in the frozen sand.

She whimpered and rolled onto her back, blinking sand out of her eyes to get a better look at who had pushed her.

"Aww… Didja trip?"

"Gonna cry?"

The twins had moved to Patch with their parents a year or so earlier, as far as Ruby knew, and they had been mean to her ever since. Sky, the girl, was the oldest (by sixteen minutes) and she liked to whisper horrible things in a sugary sweet voice. There were no adults around and Sky was probably the one who had told her friends to talk to the teachers so they'd be too busy to see what was going on.

She was clever like that.

Lapis was the one who had pushed her. He had three of his friends with him. He always did when he was pushing other people around.

"No," Ruby said as she scrabbled up to her feet. "I'm not."

She spoke with a light lisp from a couple of teeth that hadn't filled in yet and despite her denial, she was crying. She'd scuffed her knees on the frozen ground and it stung.

"Yes, you are," Sky sing-songed. "You're gonna cry like a little baby. Like a little baby-boy."

She gave Ruby's short hair a flick. There'd been a cookie-baking-related incident the earlier week and a large chunk of it had burnt off. Before it had been almost as long as Yang's but now it hung several inches above her shoulders.

Her dad had let her dye the tips as a compromise for going to the hairdresser, though, and at the time she'd thought the red color had been really pretty and cool.

Ruby felt her lower lip tremble. Why did they have to do this? What had she done?

Lapis came up to his sister's side with a wide smirk.

"Dad always says you're not supposed to hit girls… But I don't think you're a girl."

Ruby was told that she was quick on her feet, but Sky's fists proved to be faster. Ruby sobbed through her wheezing breaths as she fell back down to the ground.

Lapis absentmindedly kicked some sand at her, looking sideways at his sister for instruction.

"Maybe we should-"

The fox ears poking out of her hat flicked and her eyes widened. A second later, a voice called out.

"Hey, what's going on here?" Yang asked, her voice touched with worry.

Both Sky and Lapis darted back, splitting off into either direction as Ruby's big sister pushed past Lapis' friends.

Her lilac eyes locked on Ruby, who was trying desperately to wipe the tears and snot off her face before Yang could see she'd been crying.

No such luck.

Lilac eyes turned to scarlet and Yang rounded on the bullies, hands clenching into fists. She was tall for her age and towered over them all.

"Which one of you shits pushed my little sister?" She asked, her voice low and dangerous.

Cold air hissed against Yang's skin, almost shrouding her in steam. Lapis and Sky stubbornly held their ground but their friends began to edge back

"Who?" Yang asked again, her voice trembling with barely restrained fury. "I'm gonna kick the ass of all of ya until you tell me who did it."

Slowly, the smallest of Lapis' friends raised his hand and pointed at the boy's turned back.

Yang's eyes narrowed and she didn't hesitate for a moment, slugging him right in his smug face. Lapis went down to the ground, clutching at a broken nose and crying while his friends helped him out of there.

Yang's embrace warmed Ruby and warded off the cold and she squeezed as hard as she could, burying her tear-streaked cheek against her sister's jacket.

"Don't listen to him," Yang said, her voice gentle now that the bad guys were gone. "He's just a dumb bully. Your hair looks awesome and he's just jealous."

Ruby swallowed.

"Really?"

"Totally." Her hold tightened. "Don't worry, Rubes. I'll take care of you. I'll always take care of you."

The teachers arrived a few seconds later and Yang spent the next week grounded. Ruby had kept her hair short ever since.

* * *

The elevator 'dinged' once more but Ruby didn't notice until Weiss cleared her throat. She still felt numb all over, except where she clung to Yang.

They parted and the sensation, or lack thereof, returned. She couldn't afford to let it show, though. It was getting tough to stay chipper, each problem like a rock put into a rucksack, the weight of their task piling on as it grew more and more daunting.

They walked out of the building in silence and headed for the closest store they could find, filling a bag up with food, fruit and some water. Ruby had a feeling they wouldn't have time for sleeping or proper meals in the foreseeable future.

"When we've fixed this whole mess," Yang said, forced cheer in her voice. "I think we should all go on a double date."

"If that's your attempt to ask me out," Weiss said crisply. "You may end up disappointed."

"So that's you saying yes?"

Weiss' eyes narrowed.

"It is not. That's me saying that if you want to ask me out for a date you will have to try harder."

Yang pouted.

"Aren't you kinda doing things in the wrong order?" Ruby asked, smiling slightly.

"That's not- I am not-"

"What? You're not that kinda girl?" Yang scoffed. "The teeth marks on my left thigh say otherwise."

Ruby bit her lip but wasn't fast enough to contain a snicker. Weiss glared at them in equal measure.

"You're incorrigible," she said to Yang. "And you shouldn't encourage her, Ruby Rose."

Ruby grinned and wrapped an arm around Weiss' waist. The heiress didn't protest. Maybe Yang was right. They could do this. They'd done lots of crazy stuff before and this wasn't all that different. Team RWBY hadn't lost yet and they weren't about to start now.

* * *

The old harbor district was close enough from downtown to walk and it only took them half an hour to get there. The buildings were squatter and closer together here and all the stores had iron grills that could be pulled down over windows and doors at night.

It was interesting, Ruby thought, to see the shift in both Weiss and Blake. The area around the Schnee corporation's Vale Office had kept Blake as taut as a drawn bowstring. Now it was Weiss' turn to get tense.

"You know your way around here," Yang commented with a sideways glance to Blake. "I thought you might when we headed back to Beacon after the mess with Torchwick at the docks but I forgot to ask."

"I do," Blake said, gaze flitting back and forth between them. "I lived here for a few months before term started at Beacon."

"Oh?" Ruby sidled up next to her. "Where? What was it like?"

"A couple of blocks away," Blake said, hesitating only briefly before letting Ruby slip under her arm. "It was… Difficult, at first. Things weren't good for me back then."

"At least you met us in the end, huh?" Yang said. "That's gotta make up for at least some of it."

"Some of it," Blake agreed, smiling wryly.

"Aww yeah. We're awesome." Yang gave Blake's shoulder a light tap of her fist, the kind she usually reserved for guys she liked. "So… Rough side of town, huh? Do you know any cool underground clubs?"

"I stayed in and read," Blake said. "I didn't want to draw any attention to myself."

"But you do know some people here, do you not?" Weiss cut in. "Otherwise, this endeavor is about to fail spectacularly."

"Oh don't be so glum, Ice Queen," Yang said. "Blake knows these streets. She's down with the crowd here."

Blake rolled her eyes at Yang.

"I know some people," she confirmed. "They should know enough to get us started."

Blake led the group through trash-clogged alleys and parking lots, through holes in chain link fences, empty buildings, and rooftops. They finally made their way into a run-down but reasonably well-kept neighborhood nestled into an area bordering on one of the many shipping lots in the harbor.

Blake smiled a little as they all crossed a pockmarked basketball court and steered her steps straight for a little bookshop.

It was one of the few buildings that used glass in the shop windows and said windows were still intact. If a bit grimy.

Ruby stayed close on Blake's metaphorical tail and entered the store just a moment afterward. Inside, it was warm and cozy, heavy bookshelves groaning with old books of every description.

The floors were wood, covered in a bunch of carpets forming walkways between the shelves. Ruby carefully stomped the snow off her boots on the welcome mat.

Blake walked on, fingers tracing the spines of the books.

"Thea?" She called out, ears perked. "Are you here?"

There was a shuffling noise from the back of the shop and a moment later an old lady came walking around the corner.

She was old. Very old. Like, someone's grandma, possibly great grandma old, with a wild nest of downy white hair and a pair of notched cat's ears on top.

Though she moved ponderously, her eyes were bright and her smile warmed Ruby as surely as a cup of hot chocolate.

Blake walked up to the old woman and they hugged, standing there and speaking in subdued voices while most a minute ticked by.

When they parted they both had tears in their eyes but they were smiling, too.

"Guys," Blake said, her voice a little croaky. "This is Thea. She took care of me when I first came to Vale after… After leaving the White Fang. Thea, this is my team from Beacon. Ruby, Yang and Weiss."

She pointed them each out in turn. Thea smiled at them.

"I'm pleased to finally meet you. Blake has spoken fondly of you in her letters."

Blake's cheeks tinted red.

"Cool to meetcha, too", Yang said, reaching out a hand and shaking Thea's with a warm grin.

"It's an honor to meet you," Weiss said, inclining her head respectfully.

Ruby waved and said "Hi!"

Thea looked them each up and down, one hand casually resting on top of Blake's head, gently scratching at her ears.

"Are you here on business?" Thea asked.

She may have been old but she hadn't missed any of the weapons they carried.

"Yes," Blake said. "I'll try to come by sometime later for a cup of tea but-"

"Shush," Thea said. "Don't apologize. You're young. You have more important things to be getting on with than babying an old lady."

"No," Blake said firmly. "I'll come by. I promise. I haven't forgotten all you did for me."

Thea's warm smile drained some of the chill out of Ruby's bones.

"You are always welcome, Blake," Thea said. "As are your friends. Now… What business?"

Blake opened her mouth to speak but Yang cut across her.

"Uh, guys," she said, pointing out towards the street. "I think we've run into the welcoming committee."

Thea smiled placidly.

"Don't fret, child. They won't come in."

Ruby turned around to find a group of young people, most of them around Yang's age. A few younger, a few older. They were all armed and stood lined up across the street from the store, waiting.

"We should probably go over and say hi, huh?" Yang said.

"Friends of yours?" Weiss asked.

Blake made a face.

"I wouldn't exactly call them that."

"So what're we calling them?" Ruby asked.

"The next people on the list we need to see," Blake replied. "We should head out there. I'll see you soon, Thea. Stay safe."

"Nine lives, Blake," Thea said with a grin. "I've still got two left."

Blake and Yang both stepped forward but after an exchange of glances, Yang let her partner take the lead and the three of them fanned out just behind her.

Upon closer inspection, Ruby realized that they were all faunus and that though they outnumbered team RWBY three to one, many of them still looked nervous.

A young man stepped forward, a lion's tail poking out from the back of his pants.

Blake gave him a nod, her body language relaxed. The faunus' body all but screamed of tension, even as he swaggered up to them. He probably didn't want to look bad in front of friends but Ruby had a feeling he didn't want to take on four trained huntresses, either.

"Flax," Blake said, a little smile touching her lips. "It's been a long time."

Ruby knew that smile, dark amusement and schadenfreude. It made the young faunus stop in his tracks at a safe distance.

"Yeah," Flax said. "The - uh - The boss wants to see you. Right now, he said."

"Right now," Blake repeated slowly.

Flax seemed to want to make it clear that he was just the messenger. Probably hoping to not get shot or something. Ruby kinda felt sorry for him.

"Or else," a young woman piped up from the left flank.

Flax's face fell as Blake's gaze drifted from his to another lion faunus who was openly sneering at them, her hatchet-ended pistol confidently raised and pointed at Weiss.

Blake's teeth showed in a wolfish smile and one of her dark eyebrows twitched up under her bangs.

"Or else?"

Panic flitted across Flax's features and he raised both hands, palms up.

"He just wants a chat," he said quickly, then turned his head and snapped. "Shut the fuck up, Carmine."

"It just so happens that we need to talk to him, too," Blake said, ignoring the outburst. "Lead the way."

Sometimes, Ruby thought, her girlfriend was really, really hot.

They soon found themselves surrounded by the gang and lead down along the street. People they met on the way carefully avoided their gazes and steered their steps in another direction, if possible.

None of them turned and ran but only a few kept walking towards them.

They were taken to a run-down apartment complex. The windows had mostly been replaced with wooden boards and litter was scattered everywhere. Yang had moved within an arm's length, wary eyes steadily tracking the people they encountered. Weiss' face was set somewhere between disgust and horror.

People were buying and selling drugs right out in the open and Ruby stared as a girl at least one year younger than her traded a handful of crumpled bills for a small plastic bag with a white powdery substance.

This… This was wrong. She needed to do something about it.

Weiss' hand caught her wrist in a steely grip just before Ruby could get a hold of Crescent Rose.

"What do you think you're doing?" She hissed under her breath.

"He's hurting people," Ruby said, looking over to the young faunus doing a brisk trade from out of the back of a van.

"They are hurting themselves," Weiss said.

"They need help. We could help them!"

"If we beat him up they'll find another dealer within half an hour. We don't have time."

Ruby wiped at her eyes with her free arm, cursing the stupid tears brimming there.

"But-"

"But what?" Weiss said, her voice harsh and cold, cutting into Ruby far more painfully than Myrtenaster could ever hope to. "While we waste our time on a fool's errand the grimm will overrun us all."

"Weiss!" Yang's voice was loud and Weiss' fingers vanished from around Ruby's wrist. "Back down. Now."

"You know I'm right," Weiss said.

The menace in Yang's tone clearly scared her but she stood her ground.

"You are. You're also being a complete bitch so I'll tell you for the last time to back down."

Weiss lengthened her stride until she caught up with Blake, her face stony, her posture rigid. Her pretty lacquered nails dug into her palms and her hands shook.

"You think she's right?" Ruby asked, softly.

She couldn't keep the hurt out of the words and Yang winced.

"If we don't pull this off we won't ever get a chance to help them." Yang sighed and added. "If you want to come back here and bust some heads when we're done you know I'll help you but right now we need to stay focused on the mission."

Ruby wiped at her eyes again.

"Promise?"

Yang smiled.

"I promise."

They were led into the building and up flights of stairs until they were on the top floor. The corridor was run-down but kept clean. Ruby spotted a young faunus boy sticking his head out of one of the doors to peer curiously at them before a woman - probably his mom - yanked him back inside and shut the door.

They walked all the way down the hall and to a door that was considerably sturdier than the other ones. Flax knocked three times and stepped back, waiting. There were shuffling steps and after a few moments, the door opened.

A pair of eyes scanned them all for a moment and then the figure, a mouse-faunus, stepped aside.

Flax went in first, his gang following just behind Ruby and her team. The apartment was… Rather nice, actually. Dark red walls, plush couches, and it was… Kinda clean. Mostly. It looked like they might have had a party the night before and there were still bottles and people scattered here and there. All in all, it didn't look that different from Yang's room.

A young faunus with a rat's tail and sharp, angular features sat in the corner of the room on one of the sofas, paying equal attention to a girl with her head resting on his lap and one of the newest model of Gamestations.

He settled the control on a coffee table and whispered something to the girl, who sauntered off. Though not before their host took the chance to give her behind a smack.

Ruby frowned. Why wasn't the girl upset? She was supposed to be, right? But she just giggled and swayed her hips as she headed off into what looked to be a bedroom.

She supposed she could try it out on Blake and see what happened… But that was probably a really bad idea.

"Cordovan," Blake said. "You've expanded."

The young faunus man turned enough to be facing them but remained seated, slouching a little. He kept both feet on the floor and his hand close to the weapon she could see on a little table next to the sofa.

"A little," he responded, his carrying a soft Vacuoan accent. "Wouldn't want Vale's finest catching on just because we've overreached."

Ruby glared at him and his careless attitude. Vale's finest or no, she'd shut his stupid face down.

"That would be terrible," Blake agreed. "What do you want?"

Cordovan shook his head.

"You're as pleasant as ever, I see. Aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?"

"No."

He shrugged, seemingly unbothered by her dismissal.

"You might want to reconsider," he said. "You know you're always welcome around here… Much as you know she isn't."

He raised his hand and almost lazily pointed out Weiss.

"She's with me," Blake said, her voice growing cold for the first time. "She doesn't concern you."

"Wrong," Cordovan said, straightening in his seat. "She does concern me. She actually concerns me a lot."

He rose and Ruby became aware of the gathering tension in all his cronies, most of whom were still spread out around them along the walls.

"We're here to talk," Blake said, voice tight. "But if you want to fight…"

"I want to know why you've brought a fucking Schnee into my turf."

"Because she's with me," Blake repeated, enunciating the words. "I'll vouch for her."

"What if I don't care?"

"Then we might feel less inclined to play nice," Weiss cut in. "Blake. Is there any reason why we entertain this scoundrel and his illusions of having any say in this?"

Annoyance flashed across Blake's features.

"I had this under control, Weiss."

There was a subtle undertone of hurt to her words. Weiss caught it and her voice softened.

"I don't doubt that but we're running short on time. There's too much at stake. We need that information."

Blake nodded and turned back to Cordovan.

"We have a couple of questions. Once you've answered them we'll leave."

The young man's eyes flicked nervously to the goons he still had spread out in the room.

"If you want charity head down to the soup kitchen," he spat. "Get the fuck out of here."

Yang sighed and there was a click-clack of gears as she activated Ember Celica.

"Listen, tough guy," she said. "You can either tell us with all your teeth intact or not."

Blake cast Yang a stern look over her shoulder. Crap.

Ruby could see what was happening. Blake was trying to get him to tell them what they needed to know without hurting his pride and it might have worked. Now that Weiss and Yang had threatened him, though, he'd have to refuse or he'd look weak in front of his gang. They needed to offer him a way out.

"How about we trade?" Ruby cut in, her raised voice coming off a little shrill. "You ask us a question, we ask you a question."

That seemed to amuse Cordovan who turned his full attention to Ruby for the first time.

"Interesting," he murmured. "Fuck it. Why not? Let's start with your names."

They all exchanged glances.

"Weiss Schnee, though you seemed to know that already."

"Yang. Sup?"

Blake simply rolled her eyes at him.

"Uhm. Ruby Rose. Hi."

"Our turn," Blake cut in. "There's been a lot of violence around here and the surrounding areas. We want to know everything you know of it."

Cordovan's dark brows furrowed.

"Thought you were training to be a huntress. Not a cop."

"Thinking clearly isn't your strong suit," Weiss said. "You'd best stop before you hurt yourself and answer the question."

Cordovan shrugged. He didn't look put off by Weiss' acidic tone or the insult. He was actually smirking at her.

"It's what's always happening. The government stops giving a shit about the people who live here and the people get fed up and rise up."

There was a light in his eyes when he spoke that made Ruby uneasy. Weiss rolled her eyes at him.

"Spare us your conspiracies."

Anger flickered across Cordovan's features.

"Conspiracies? The water hasn't worked properly here for a month and that we can put up with but when kids start going missing people will notice and they will react. It doesn't matter how hard people like you and your father try to cover it up."

Blake made a sharp hushing noise that was just shy of a hiss.

"What missing kids?"

"Faunus. All of them. At least one a day, sometimes more. Sometimes a lot more. I've had my guys looking into it, but…" He shook his head and turned to Weiss. "One of them mentioned seeing you, in fact. Came to me and told me how he'd met you. How one of your friends was a faunus. The next day he was gone."

"I - I had nothing to do with that," Weiss sputtered. She must have realized just how bad that sounded because she added, with mild incredulity: "Truly, I didn't. I don't prowl the streets at night looking for faunus children to steal away like some fairytale boogeyman!"

He snorted. "Fine. Why are you going to all this trouble for a bunch of faunus kids, Schnee?"

"It's not just about them," Weiss said. "In case you haven't noticed, the city is tearing itself to shreds. The missing kids seem to be a part of that and even if they had not been I am not so callous that I would stand idly by while children are hurt, faunus or no."

Cordovan considered her, frowning.

"We need to know where those kids got taken, Cord," Blake said. "And who might have taken them. When. How. Any witnesses. Any little detail you have. If we find them you get to take credit for taking them down."

White teeth gleamed in a dangerous smile.

"I thought you'd forgotten how to play the game," Cordovan said. "I guess I was wrong."

He called out for two of his goons to fetch a map, a pad of paper and a pen. Fifteen minutes later he'd marked well over a dozen locations on the map, adding notes where necessary. They had a list of names, aliases and addresses. Everything they could possibly need.

"Thanks," Blake said. "We appreciate the help."

Cordovan raised a hand with his pointer finger extended towards the ceiling. "One more question. Is Blondie as good at giving head as she looks?"

There were varying reactions. Yang seemed surprised but not upset. Blake's mouth dropped open. Ruby just stared, wide-eyed. Weiss did not hesitate even a beat before answering.

"Yes. She's quite good." She turned her back on the gang leader. "Shall we?"

They all trooped out after her, leaving a flushed Cordovan and several snickering gang members behind.

* * *

Two hours later Ruby had concluded she probably never could have made a very good police officer. There was way too much walking and people weren't being helpful at all! Most of them were lying, according to Blake, or refused to talk at all.

Yang and Weiss had split off to take care of half of the list, leaving Ruby and Blake with the rest. Generally, Huntresses weren't supposed to split up except under the direst circumstances. This had qualified according to Yang and Ruby had agreed.

"Do you know what time it was?" Blake asked, rubbing at her temple.

"Dunno. Bout closing time but I sometimes keep the store open late."

They were in a convenience store, speaking to a spindly old man with an equally spindly mustache. He'd refused to tell them anything until they'd bought a soda each.

"Making it nine o'clock or perhaps a little later?"

The shopkeeper frowned in thought, scratching at his chin. "Sure. Sounds about right. She your friend?"

"Yes," Blake lied smoothly. "We're very worried. Is there anything else you can tell us?"

"No." Ruby's shoulders slumped. "But I think I know someone who might. Old Tom was here getting a bottle of booze. I was in the back getting his usual and I only caught the last of it. That poor girl dragged away into the van."

They both perked up in interest at that.

"Where can we find old Tom?"

"There's a pub down the next street called The Burning Cock. Don't look at me like that, I had nothing to do with it being named that. He's usually there. Best be careful, girls. The clientele isn't what anyone would call… Refined."

Ruby forced a polite smile. "Don't worry. We'll be totally fine. Thank you, sir!"

They walked off according to the directions they'd been given. Blake stayed very close to her, one arm slung around Ruby's waist. Ruby saw no problems with that.

There was no bouncer outside of the pub, though a few people stood there smoking. Ruby wrinkled her nose at the acrid stench and ignored two men old enough to be her dad trying to address her. It took some pointed words from Blake to the barkeeper but she eventually got a glass of whisky and had the man they were looking for pointed out.

Old Tom sat in a corner booth with a pint of beer in front of him. He was a skinny man whose hair was a mishmash of gray and white, with a few strands of black left in there. His clothes were worn and once they got closer, Ruby could smell sour sweat.

Blake squeezed her hand and Ruby took that to mean she wanted to lead on this one. That was fine, too. Blake was good at this sorta thing.

"Jared from the convenience store sent us over," she said, drawing a thumb along the rim of the glass. "He said you saw something the other night. We need to know what."

Tom drank deep out of his pint and settled it unsteadily on the dirty wooden table, squinting at them.

"Are you cops?"

Blake raised an eyebrow. "Do we look like cops?"

"S'pose not."

"Would you have talked to us if we were?"

"Nah. Nobody here talks to the sodding cops. We know better than that."

"Right," Blake said. "But we're not cops and we need you to tell us. It's important."

He shrugged. "To you, maybe."

Blake sighed. "Look. Tell us what you saw and you can have this whisky."

The man's expression changed like the flip of a switch. Suddenly, he was beaming at them. Most of his teeth were gone, or ruined.

"Why didn't you say so from the beginning?" He reached out for the glass but Blake put her hand in the way.

"After," she said firmly.

He didn't seem perturbed by that in the slightest.

"I was over at Jared's store, as you said, getting me some whisky. Then, suddenly, I see these fellows in dark clothes, robes almost, come out of nowhere. Three or four of them. They grab this young girl, see, and stick a needle in her neck. Then they pull her into a van. I was going to go out there and help her but these old legs aren't what they used to be."

He sighed wistfully. "I used to be a freelance hunter, I'll have you know. In the outer villages to the north. Used to-"

Blake held up a hand for silence.

"What else was there. Did you see any of their faces? A license plate on the car? Did they drop anything?"

Tom shook his head. "It was too dark, see, and it was over in a few seconds. She was young, 'bout your age, maybe a few years older. Blonde."

Blake considered him carefully. She was trying to see if he was lying or withholding anything. She was very, very good at that except with Weiss.

"Thank you for the help," she said, pushing the glass over to him and rising.

They moved over to a booth a few rows away and Ruby sent Yang a text message telling her where they were. She hadn't even got her scroll down into her pocket again before her sister responded that she was on her way.

"What do we do now?" Ruby asked. "He didn't tell us anything new."

Blake smiled a little. She'd settled next to Ruby and took her hand. She used her other hand to tick off things on a list.

"We learned that there are several people kidnapping kids. It's not some lone predator. It's a group. A group means a different kind of motive. Most of the time.."

She went to finger number two.

"They moved in quickly and quietly. They got her, threw her in a van, and disappeared in a few seconds. That suggests they knew what they were doing. They'd probably done it before."

Finger number three.

"They had drugs to knock her out. Those aren't that difficult to get here but it's still a lead."

"Ooh, ooh!" Ruby grabbed onto Blake's fourth finger, carefully raising it, too. "Do you remember that girl they said was attacked but she died of a drug overdose?"

Blake blinked and then nodded. "Could be the same people. We'll have to check but for now, let's assume so. An early attack, maybe? One that went wrong?"

Ruby's tummy suddenly twisted around with nausea. "Or they wanted them alive. You know, to-"

"I know," Blake said quickly, cutting across her. "I know. Maybe. We'll need to see what Yang and Weiss found."

* * *

Their teammates arrived fifteen minutes later. Yang sauntered by the bar and got them all drinks before coming over. Soda for Ruby. Probably for the best, really.

"Soo... " She said, settling next to Ruby. "What did you get?"

Blake pulled the notepad she'd been sketching on all throughout their investigation out and pushed it across the table. Weiss produced a similar one.

"Lots of mentions of people in black nabbing people," Yang noted. "That's kinda creepy."

"Here's a correlation," Weiss said. "You have a blonde woman, young, being pulled into a van. We do, too, only ours is being carried away from the van. The none too bright woman who saw it simply though they were helping a drunk friend home."

Weiss pointed at the notes. "If they are the same person then we have them being taken at your location, then moved to ours. I doubt they would have wanted to be carrying her around for long. That probably means they took her somewhere in the vicinity."

"Or switched vehicle," Blake said. "They could have taken her someplace else in another vehicle once they were out of sight."

Weiss sighed. "Granted, but if they did we'd have nothing to go on and we are right back where we started. This is a clue we can pursue."

Blake sipped at her drink. "True."

"So… Do we go check it out?" Ruby asked.

"In a bit," Yang said. "I ordered some food, too. It's cold out there. You'll need to keep your strength up, sis."

She peered over the papers Weiss and Blake had already studied, lips pursed as she thought.

"They only ever jump people who are alone. I guess that's smart."

"And quite unsettling once you consider the implications," Weiss added.

"Hold that thought," Yang said.

She waved over a man with a tray of food and soon even a grudging Weiss was feasting on a none too healthy hamburger. The conversation faded out as they ate. It was a brief respite but Ruby had a feeling they'd all needed it.

They paid and headed back out and Ruby shivered as the cold washed over her once more. She pulled her cloak closer and stepped nearer to Yang. Stupid cold weather. Why couldn't the grimm hibernate like any other sensible creature?

The streets had gotten less crowded but were still plenty active. More so than the ordinary nightlife warranted. People were wandering aimlessly and there was a bit of a police presence in evidence, finally. They drew the odd look from the authorities but once they spotted their weaponry and realized they were huntresses there was no further scrutiny.

They moved away from the city center once more and back towards the derelict industrial areas nearer the harbor. Yang and Weiss stopped on a smaller side street branching off from the larger roads going through the district. There was still quite a lot of activity here, more so than on the main street almost, with cars stopping for their drivers to talk to the several young women lining up along the streets.

Why were they dressed so lightly? Surely they had to be getting cold. One of the women accepted a handful of lien and then hopped into one of the dark cars. Oh. Oooh.

Yang's insistence that she and Weiss take this area suddenly made a lot of sense. As did the firm grip she'd had on Ruby's hand for the last few blocks.

"This is where she was last seen," Weiss said. "But there was no indication that she actually worked here nor where they took her."

She indicated at the houses, businesses, and clubs lining the street. Hundreds. A needle in a haystack. Then again…

"She's probably not in any of the houses right here, is she?" Ruby said. "This isn't exactly the sneakiest place for that sorta stuff, right?"

"Probably not, no. Too many watching eyes," Blake said. "See those guys?"

She pointed towards two men walking down the other side of the street.

"Pimps," she said. "They're responsible for protection and keeping things in check here. We could ask them if they know something."

Yang looked uncomfortable. "Let's skip that for now. If we gotta, we'll check with them later."

She turned in a circle, eyes scanning and then locking on an alley towards the end of the street. Her golden brows furrowed and she walked off without a word, dragging Ruby along by the hand.

They stopped at the mouth of the alley. Yang hesitated, then stepped into the shadow of the buildings. The moon shone down from overhead, but clouds were forming and small flecks of snow were already falling. The alley was clogged with garbage and a burnt out van stood in its center.

"Yang-?"

Yang held up a hand and Weiss fell silent. She took a few moments, then said.

"This could be the van they took her in. They ditched it here… But why? There's nothing here."

There weren't even any doors leading into any buildings in the alley, just smooth brick and a few boarded up windows. Blade stepped up beside her, her expression a little distant as she thought, though her ears flicked at any sound.

"Someone saw the girl here, or nearby," the faunus said. "So they went down the street and ran into trouble. They came here, ditched the van, burned it and the evidence, then dragged her away… They can't have taken her very far or near too many people unless they silenced them all, meaning…"

She pointed out into the darkness beyond the alley where the industrial area resumed once more.

"It would afford them privacy. Those factories haven't been active for decades," Weiss said. "A lot of the vagrants have gone missing in this area, have they not? Perhaps they strayed too close and were, as Blake so crudely put it, silenced."

Blake scowled but nodded.

"It's probably our best bet."

"The first big break for team RWBY," Ruby said.

She jumped excitedly up in down in place, grinning until she almost slipped. She hadn't realized it until now but the streets were getting slick with melting snow and ice. That could be bad. Or...

She grabbed a fistful of slush as her team walked on, squeezed it into a snowball and tossed it at the back of her sister's head.

Yang flailed around and her eyes fixed on Ruby, a dangerous grin forming.

"You little brat!"

Ruby dodged out of the way of her sister's lunge, straight into a brick wall. Only it was in mid-air. A glyph. Weiss tried to look innocent but Ruby saw one corner of her mouth twitch for a split second before Yang caught her and bore her down to the ground.

"Noooo," Ruby wailed, wiggling as Yang grabbed a fistful of snow and pressed it down the back of Ruby's shirt. "I'm sorry, Yang. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

Yang had no mercy and forced two more handfuls of snow down Ruby's jumper before she let her get up again.

"You suck, Yang," Ruby muttered, wiggling until the snow that hadn't already melted horribly against her back fell out from under her clothes. "And you're the absolute worst, Weiss. You're supposed to be my partner!"

"Guys," Blake said, her voice sharp. "We had something to do, remember?"

Ruby nodded, slipping past her sister and traitorous partner.

"Sorry, Blake. You're right. Just got a little excited about the snow."

Blake nodded and they made their way across a pockmarked parking lot, dodging slowly freezing puddles of water. Ahead, a factory loomed over the area, with two larger buildings further along.

"These were slaughterhouses, once upon a time," Weiss noted as they approached the building. "The rise of water-borne grimm must have cut off their supply and taken the business out."

The windows had been boarded up and covered in plastic. The doors and walls were rusting, as most things tended to do this near the sea. It had been the same back at Patch.

Ruby reached for the door handle and a hand caught her wrist in a warm, solid grip.

"Let me go first," Yang said. She spoke softly but her grip was unyielding.

Ruby nodded and stepped back, letting Yang take the lead. She was better for that sort of thing, in any case. It had been silly of Ruby to want to rush in first. Yang grabbed the handle and pulled. It was locked.

"Hey, Ruby?" She said. "Remember that story about the big bad wolf and the little piglets?"

"Uh, yeah?"

Yang grinned and took a step back, raising her leg.

"Well, I'm gonna huff and puff and-"

She pulled her leg back to deliver a devastating kick - and yelped in surprise as her foot slipped on the ice and landed ass-first on the hard ground. She groaned and rolled over, clumsily getting her feet under her and pushing herself to a vertical position.

"Just charging my semblance," Yang muttered. "It's all according to plan."

They all kept carefully quiet and avoided one another's gazes. Weiss sounded like she might be choking on something. Blake very helpfully brushed the snow off Yang's bottom.

"Maybe a little less of a brute approach is in order," she noted and vanished, leaving a shadowy clone behind. Before the mirage had disappeared, the door clicked and opened from the inside.

"You coulda just gone ahead and done that from the beginning," Yang said, massaging her sore behind.

"I didn't want to steal your thunder."

Ruby followed Yang inside, with Weiss bringing up the rear and wrinkled her nose at the smell. It was dark, even with Yang using the flashlight function on her scroll, but from the looks of things this area had been a lunchroom for the factory. There were tables along one wall, though some had been pushed up against the windows and nailed there.

Some of the windows had been repaired with plastic sheets haphazardly stapled over the gaping hole. A cold gust blew in through a slit where a nail had torn free, rattling the plastic in a slow sigh.

Blankets, boxes and other detritus formed little dens along the interior wall. People had lived here at some point. People who didn't have any other home had tried to make one here. As good a home as they knew how.

Ruby's foot hit something and she stumbled before catching onto Yang's arm. The object crashed into the wall and shattered. A bottle. Everyone jumped at the sudden noise.

"Watch it," Weiss hissed.

"Sorry," Ruby whispered. "Sorry. I didn't see it."

Blake plucked her scroll out of her pocket and lit it, too, pointing the light toward the floor. Ruby stepped carefully over more bottles and discarded food packages. There were needles on the ground at one of the beds. Maybe some nice doctor had come by to make sure people were okay.

There were doors leading off into a bathroom at the end of the room. The stench was coming from there and in the end it was Blake who opened up to check. She recoiled and slammed the door shut again.

"It's clean," she pronounced. "In a manner of speaking. Nobody's gone and died in there, at any rate."

They turned back, mindful of the trash littering the floor and headed through locker rooms and into a little room with a large washing basin, emptied out soap dispensers, plastic gloves and such things. There were bottles of rubbing alcohol on the floor, all empty.

The door from there opened up to the factory floor. The building had been sectioned off into areas, each presumably with its own specific purpose.

There were spaces on the floor where machines must have gone in the past and that now gaped empty. The windows were high and small, where there were any at all, letting in a few feeble rays of the light reflected off the shattered moon. Plastic strips fell from the arched doorways between sections and they clung to Ruby like clammy fingers as she pushed them aside, peering into the darkness of the narrow room ahead.

The smell was different here. It was a coppery scent, like the rust, but different. There was a shallow ditch running along the middle of the floor in a long corridor of sorts, with iron grills above it.

"Hey Weiss," Yang said. "You guys have a lot of mountains in Atlas, right?"

"Yes." Weiss' voice suggested she wasn't in the mood for games.

"So have you heard about how they're not just funny. They're actually hill-areas."

She laughed but there was something about it that crawled up Ruby's back like the slush she'd thrown down there earlier. That laugh was just… Off.

"Yang," Weiss said, enunciating the name with her last dreg of patience.

"And plateus. They're the highest form of flattery."

"Be silent," Weiss hissed.

"Oh come on, Weissicle. There's nobody-"

"Yang." Blake didn't raise her voice but Yang shut up regardless. "We're not alone here."

Her ears flicked, searching for something only she could hear, and seemingly barely that. Yang winced and nodded.

Ruby moved a little closer to her sister and noticed, in the light of her scroll, that the concrete below their feet was stained. The area under the grills in particular. She stopped, knelt, and peered down.

It was blood. Old, dried blood. Little fluffy animals had walked right here, down the narrow corridor where she was walking, and had been cut down, again and again, until there was so much blood it left a permanent stain. Had they known they were about to die? Or had they just been happily minding their own business? Ruby shuddered and looked away.

Blake took the lead. Her steps had gained a sense of purpose, now, and she took a left as the room opened up once more. The rest of them followed close behind, Weiss managing surprising stealth despite her high heels.

Blake stopped at the edge of a wall and held one hand up, fist closed, and they all filed in behind her.

"There's someone around the corner. A hundred or so feet away."

Fingers trembling, Ruby squeezed her fingers around Crescent Rose stock.

"He's human and he's out of breath. I don't think he's a fighter," Blake said softly.

"Okay," Ruby said. "Let's go. On three. One. Two…"


	6. Chapter Six

Author's Note: The actual note is going to be at the end of the story. Enjoy!

* * *

"Three!"

They burst around the corner, Ruby taking the lead in a flash of her semblance. Ahead was an area that had probably once served as a loading dock for deliveries, where some of the stacks for pallets were still more or less intact.

The floor was covered with sleeping bags and Ruby could see the silvery glimmer of handcuffs by several of them. It stank of human waste and smoke. The farther in they got, the worse the smell became. At the end of the room, a man stood with his back to them, talking into his scroll as he tossed sleeping bags into a flaming barrel.

As Ruby picked up speed all those details faded away into the background. All that existed was the rush of air, whipping her head back as she zipped across the room, the thrill of the hunt sending liquid lightning down her limbs.

She hurtled forward and by the time he realised she was coming, it was too late. He managed to throw the scroll into the fire and then Ruby hit him, feet first, like a runaway train. They slammed into the wall and Ruby was the first to get to her feet, aiming Crescent Rose at the stranger's head. Judging by the dent in the corrugated steel wall and the blood slowly trickling down from his hairline and along his cheek, she'd gotten him pretty good… And he didn't have any aura to protect him.

"Do not move," Weiss said, her voice frigid. She rested Myrtenaster's tip against the man's throat. He held his hands up almost sheepishly.

"What do we do?" Yang said, peering down at the guy. "And can I punch him?"

Ruby frowned and shook her head when Yang looked over her way.

"No." She prodded the man with her shoe. "What's going on here?"

His grin bared crooked yellow teeth and his chuckle was a weak, wheezing thing. His breath stank. All of him did. Sweat, dirt, and a lot of other things Ruby couldn't even identify.

"We need answers," Yang said.

She glanced sideways to Blake instead of Ruby for some sort confirmation and the exchange sent an uneasy feeling coursing through Ruby's body.

"You're right," Blake said. "I can do it."

"Do what, exactly?" Ruby asked.

Blake was pale but her voice was firm. "I can make him talk."

"No," Ruby said. "We can take him to the police. They can talk to him and see what he knows, right? We don't have to-"

"There's no time, Ruby," Blake said. "I don't want this, either, but we can't wait."

"Right you are, huntress. There is no more time. The end began weeks ago." The man spoke in a low rasp of a voice. "You will all die screaming as He devours this world and makes it his own, purging the filth of your existence from it."

He laughed again, eyes rolling back in his skull. Something metal glinted at the back of his mouth and Ruby saw Blake's eyes widen. The man bit down and threw himself back and away from them. He only managed a few feet along the concrete floor before Yang piled on top of him and flattened him.

"His mouth!" Blake shouted. "He bit down on something. Get it out of his mouth!"

Yang threw him over onto his back and went for his jaw. Something yellow and frothy bubbled past his lips and she recoiled sharply at the acrid stench. His body began to convulse and Yang rolled back out of the way, eyes wide with horror.

"What- What the hell?"

"Cyanide pill," Blake said. "He had a capsule behind one of his teeth, in case he was caught."

Ruby swallowed down the bile she could feel rising up her throat and kept her lips pressed firmly closed.

"Another dead end," Weiss muttered darkly. "Brilliant. Now what?"

Blake glared at her and moved over to the corpse. She rifled through his pockets coming up with nothing but a single key and, tied to it, a square plastic tag with a palm tree and a name written underneath it.

"A motel," Blake said. "He doesn't even have a wallet… The scroll's toast."

"Do you know it?" Yang asked.

Blake nodded. "It's only a few blocks away."

Yang visibly tried to pull together some cheer and said, "I guess we're getting a room."

* * *

The Sweaty Palms motel was a large establishment just off the highway. Clean, discreet and functional, it took up a whole block's worth of buildings, its parking lot full of cars. Several fast food joints surrounded the premises.

It was too late for there to be a lot of people around but Ruby spotted a few bedraggled tourists making their way over to their rooms just like they were doing, looking for the right door. Their room was on the second of three floors and they followed the walkway along the other rooms, door by door, until they reached the second to last of the row.

"This is it," Blake said, pulling out the key. "Be careful when you're in there. Leave your shoes off and don't move around too much or you'll contaminate the scene."

Ruby noted she talked just like the heroine of that really sappy novel about the police officer and her magical side-kick and love interest. Well… That still left her knowing more than the rest of them did, which was zilch.

Blake led the way inside, peering into the darkness for a few moments before relaxing.

"It's clear."

She pulled her boots off and the rest of them did the same, carefully placing them just inside the door at the spot Blake indicated. Without her high heels, Weiss was actually shorter than Ruby was. Had she always been? Ruby was pretty sure she hadn't. Maybe all that milk really was doing the trick.

"Try not to move stuff around," Blake said.

They got to work scouring the room. The guy had been a complete slob. The clothes they found stank horribly. There were naughty magazines in one drawer that Ruby quickly shoved back without looking at. There were boxes of takeout food everywhere, several of them half-full. None of them were beginning to smell - yet - but they looked like they'd been lying about for a while.

They ended up by the door, staring out through the window as the wind howled, sleet beating against the glass.

"We're back to square one, then," Weiss said through clenched teeth.

She was trembling and when Ruby dared look a little closer she saw something in her eyes that was just… Off. Something cold and cruel that didn't belong there.

"Not exactly," Ruby said hopefully. "We know some stuff. We know this guy was involved and that there's more people and-"

"We know that there is a threat that will kill the entire population of Vale within the next day or two and we know somebody is behind it," Weiss said, her voice growing louder and shriller with each word. "Which isn't a damn thing more than before and our only lead is dead because someone had to get trigger happy."

"I did what I had to do," Blake shot back, rounding on Weiss. "We needed to make him talk. Even if we'd known he had the poison we couldn't have stopped him."

Weiss stepped closer, brushing past Ruby's feebly raised hand, and got up in Blake's face.

"Perhaps if you had given him options, rather than condemning him to torture, he would have been willing to share what he knew. Perhaps if you had consulted with your team we would have come up with a better solution."

"We were on schedule," Blake said through gritted teeth. "Someone had to make the call."

"Yes but that someone did not have to be you! Last I checked, Ruby was the leader of this team!"

Blake's expression darkened but Weiss kept on talking.

"But you simply had to go ahead and do it, didn't you? Had to sink your claws in. What's that saying about leopards not changing their spots?"

Blake moved. Weiss was fast but not fast enough and Blake's arm slipped under her sweeping hand, catching the heiress by the front of her dress and hauling her off her feet. Blake pushed her backwards until Weiss' shoulder blades hit the wall.

Yang's arm swept out on what must have been pure reflex, pulling Ruby to her and moving back until they both toppled onto the bed.

"Sometimes the perfect choice isn't available to us," Blake spat. "Sometimes we have to make do with what we have."

They were barely an inch apart now, glaring at one another, breathing heavily as Weiss struggled in a futile attempt to get free.

"I'm sure that's exactly what The White Fang taught you. All those hard choices you'd have to make for the greater good."

Blake's amber eyes flashed with hate and she slammed her fist into the wall two inches from Weiss' face. They both froze, their bodies tense and quivering like bowstrings, staring at the spot where the plaster and concrete bore a fist-shaped dent. Yang held on tight to Ruby, who sat more or less in her lap, staring helplessly at the two of them.

And then, at the moment when the tension was at its peak, when Ruby was sure they were about to start throwing punches, Weiss instead surged forward and pressed her lips to Blake's.

There was a moment of startled surprise in which Ruby could see Blake's fingers tightening around Weiss arms, and she pressed forward, flattening Weiss' slim figure against the wall, meeting her with a hunger that had Ruby holding her breath.

Oh. That… That had taken a turn. An unexpected and kinda hot turn. So… What the heck was she supposed to do now?

Weiss was whimpering in between frantic kisses, one leg coming around behind Blake's calf, pulling her in closer. Her hands had drifted from Blake's shoulders to her back, fingers digging into the fabric of the faunus' shirt.

Ruby knew she should be upset, hurt or seething with jealousy. Probably both. She wasn't. Instead, heat boiled low in her belly, spreading and swelling with each whimper that passed between Weiss' lips. She crossed her legs self-consciously, squeezing her thighs together against the growing need. She could feel Yang's breath on her neck. It was warm and growing quicker.

"Is this… Is this okay?" Yang wondered. "The two of them. Cos I'd punch Blake for you, partner or not."

Ruby nodded, then realised Yang might not be able to see that, and quietly said. "Yeah. Kinda neat, isn't it?"

"Wicked hot," Yang agreed, nervous laughter lurking behind the words. "Always thought the two of them might be having the hots for eachother."

Neither of the girls in question seemed to take note of their audience. Blake had managed to slip one thigh in between Weiss' legs and had left a line of red marks along the fair skin of her throat.

"Yeah," Ruby said. "Guess you're right. Yikes."

She felt pretty sure her eyes were the size of saucers or something, as she watched Weiss clamp her legs around Blake's thigh, hips undulating shamelessly. It was… Really, really… Something. Ruby wasn't quite sure how to put it into words, beyond Yang's "Wicked Hot" but she could already feel herself getting wet.

"Always am," Yang said smugly. "Big sisters are always right, as you should well know."

"Except on that dust test last week."

Yang scowled. Ruby couldn't see her but she knew. Sister superpowers. "It was one test and I forgot to study. Geez."

She ruffled up Ruby's hair and hugged her tighter, resting her chin on Ruby's shoulder. The warm, soft press of her body against Ruby's back felt… Kinda nice.

"I always thought it'd be Weiss taking charge," Yang mused. "You know, all stern and in control. Maybe with a riding crop or something."

The thought had Ruby's breath catch in her throat and she squeezed her thighs together again.

"You've thought way too much about that, Yang."

"Mmm. Maybe."

Yang definitely sounded distracted. Ruby wondered if she was getting as hot and bothered as she was? No! Bad thoughts. Bad brain.

Blake gave Weiss another shove up against the wall and took half a step back, surveying her work. The other girl's legs were trembling badly and there was something almost feral in her eyes. Blake just smiled and grabbed hold of the top of Weiss' dress, yanking it carelessly down and baring the slight curve of her breasts and a pair of pale blue, lacy panties.

"They're really going to hump right here, huh?" Yang said.

Blake ran a single finger down along Weiss' collarbone, drawing a spiral with her nail around the other girl's breast before giving the taut peak of her nipple a light flick. Ruby thought it must've hurt but she could see Weiss' belly tense up, lean muscle taut under her pale skin.

Weiss seemed to be about to say something but Blake silenced her before she'd gotten more than the first syllable out, muffling the rest of the words in a fierce kiss. Her hand continued past Weiss' breasts, down along her stomach to finally slip inside her underwear.

Ruby could feel something moving at the small of her back and a slow shudder passed through Yang. Was she…? She couldn't be. But it only took a few moments before she heard the sound of Yang popping the top button of her pants and pulling the zipper down

Well… If Blake and Weiss were going to enjoy themselves, maybe she should, too? Yang seemed like she was gonna. It'd almost be weird if she was the only one who didn't.

It was enough of a justification for Ruby in her current state of mind. She reached a hand down, tracing along the fabric of her stockings, slowing to a lazy crawl up her thighs until she felt damp lace under her fingers. She managed to stifle a moan but couldn't do anything about the slow shudder passing through her.

Blake had slouched a little, her arm at an angle, thrusting into Weiss, who clung on for dear life, fingers digging into Blake's shoulders. Yang's breathing was getting ragged, her gasps interspersed with increasingly frequent little whimpers.

The thing about Yang that was totally unfair… Well, other than her looking like an artist's drawings of Valean Fertility Goddesses (which Ruby may or may not have been browsing for reasons unrelated to academic pursuits) she also came really, easily. Like really easily.

Being so very close, Ruby could feel the frantic movement of Yang's hand, knuckles brushing up against her rear. She could feel the rise and fall of Yang's chest, her soft whimpers, growing more and more frequent until they cut off with a low half-suppressed whine. Yang pulled Ruby closer still, shivering as she came, her fingers slowing but not stopping.

Seriously, seriously unfair. It couldn't have been more than two or three minutes.

Blake and Weiss didn't seem to notice at all but for Ruby it was all but impossible to ignore. So why wasn't she stopping? Cos that was kinda weird, right? Then again, the whole situation was weird. Yang was back at it again. Weiss was arching her body into Blake's, moaning softly at each rough thrust of the other girl's fingers. Weird, yep, but despite that, Ruby's own fingers were doing light little circles along her clit and the train of thought petered out into a soft blur of pleasure.

Weiss cried out - a low, throaty sound - and her body tensed. Her hand snapped down to settle at Blake's wrist, forcing her to slow down. Each languid thrust sent a slow shiver down Weiss' willowy frame until, satisfied with her work, Blake leaned in and kissed her. She was surprisingly gentle, compared to before, and Ruby recognized that side of her more.

Blake stepped back from Weiss, giving Ruby and Yang a perfectly clear view of the girl. Her hair stuck to her forehead, matted with sweat. Her pale skin was flushed and blotchy and her legs trembled so badly that she sank slowly down against the wall.

Blake let out a snort of laughter. "You okay, Princess?"

Weiss glare was muted by her glassy eyed-expression but it was still there.

"I am perfectly fine, thank you," she said, her words clipped.

Blake ran a hand up along Weiss' cheek, stroking back the hair that lay plastered against her forehead.

"Come here. Your turn."

Blake moved over to the wall she'd recently… Um... Taken Weiss up against and gave Weiss an expectant look.

"Come on, keep up." For all the command in Blake's voice, Ruby thought she could detect a little bit of impatience, too. She could get kinda riled up when they got frisky.

Weiss moved up to Blake on her hands and feet in a posture that was… Kinda-sorta very revealing. Ruby stared a completely respectable and appropriate amount and sped up the movement of her fingers.

Weiss' hands travelled up along Blake's legs, fingers dipping beneath the material of her leggings at the hips and hesitating there for one long moment. Then, possibly provoked by the challenging look Blake was giving her - all smug and so hot when she was in control like that - tugged them down the faunus' legs.

She looked up again, meeting Blake's calm, expectant gaze, and then bent forward. Weiss pressed a kiss to Blake's thigh, then the other, hesitating another few moments before leaning in to press her lips to Blake's sex.

Ruby couldn't actually see her do it, since the neat dark curls between Blake's thighs disappeared when Weiss pressed in close, but Blake's back arched, her breath caught on a bad word, and her hips shifted forward.

Pressure was building low in Ruby's belly, little flickers of pleasure surging down her limbs like static electricity… Only nice.

She looked back at Yang and… Yep. She was coming again, whispering soft profanities into Ruby's neck and sending thoroughly confusing, unbidden flashes of heat through her. She stared diligently forward, focusing on the show, and trying her very best not to think about the fact that her big sister was holding her as she touched herself… Or that the idea, the warmth of Yang's body, and the slow undulating motions of Blake's hips were all conspiring against her and bringing Ruby to the edge.

She tried to hold off, really she did, but then she heard the telltale sound of Blake's breath picking up, turning into almost desperate gasps for air, and Ruby came. Hard. harder than she could remember pretty much ever, doubling over and moaning in shameless pleasure as the sensation washed over her.

A moment of silence followed and stretched on stubbornly. Ruby could suddenly hear the howl of the wind from outside again, shaking the walls and rattling the windows. A storm was coming for them and she had a feeling that it would be a bad one. She glanced at her teammates, all of whom had the same expression on their faces. Heck, she probably did too. Surprise. Shock… and maybe just a tiny smidgen of 'Just got boinked real good.' It was a rare pleasure to see Yang completely speechless.

"So… That was a thing."

And a short-lived one, too.

It was probably more awkward for the rest of them. Ruby only had to pull her hand out from under her skirt. Weiss and Blake were more or less naked, both of them trying not to look at one another as they got dressed.

"Thank you for your insightful input, Yang," Weiss said, eyes narrowing at her.

Ruby frowned. What had just happened, really? There'd been sparks between Blake and Weiss since… More or less forever. She'd always known that and it hadn't ever bothered her but there was a bit of a skip from that to what had just happened.

"There's something weird going on here," Ruby murmured, frowning. "Seriously. What the heck just happened, you guys?"

Yang frowned. "Uh. Do I need to give you The Talk again, Rubes?"

Ruby smacked her on the back on the head. "Seriously, Yang!"

"It just… happened," Blake said.

Her brows her pinched in consternation.

"It was rather sudden and unexpected," Weiss noted. "Considering the time and setting… And people have been acting strangely all around town. Perhaps not as we are, but strangely nonetheless."

"Eh." Yang shrugged and pulled up the zipper of her cargo pants. "You banged. It was hot. What's so weird about that?"

"We kinda had other stuff to do," Ruby said. "And up until right now I'd completely forgotten."

Weiss cast Blake a dirty look. "Then perhaps someone ought not have kissed me."

"You kissed me first!" Blake shot back. "And-"

"Enough!"

Ruby blinked. Oh. She'd been the one to shout. Uhm. That probably meant she needed to say something more, now, because everyone was staring at her.

"This was really weird but we don't have time to talk or think about that now, okay?" She plucked her scroll from her pocket and checked it. "It's been eleven hours and we still don't know anything."

Nobody spoke. Ruby waited for a moment to make sure, cos good leaders listened to their teams.

"We've got another day, maybe two if we're lucky, and every minute we dilly-dally people are gonna die. So… Blake. I want you to check the newspapers. Take the big ones first, then check local ones in the places where stuff's been extra crazy. Weiss. We need police reports and stuff for the last week or so. Anything weird. Anything at all, really. Yang will take those. You'll talk to your dad and see if he knows anything, then help Yang."

Weiss raised her hand a little, one finger extended in a silent request for permission to speak, just like she might in class. Ruby nodded to her.

"May I suggest we acquire another room. This one…" She wrinkled her nose. "It's unsanitary."

Ruby looked around and grinned sheepishly. "Yup. Come on, let's go. It's gonna be a long night and I want coffee."

They made their way down to the little building placed right smack in the middle of the motel's parking lot and followed the little signs helpfully directing them to the reception. The cold outside sank its teeth into their limbs, gnawing viciously, and Yang soon found all three of them jostling to get close to her. Even after they'd gotten past the revolving doors leading into the building, they all stayed close.

"Huh. Where's everyone at?"

The door had been open… And the lights were all on, but there weren't any actual people around. Well, besides them. Ruby peered around, pulling her cloak more snugly around her shoulders as she moved out of Yang's bubble of warmth. Maybe they'd gone off for coffee. Or hot chocolate. She could totally sympathize with anyone who'd wanna do that. Fans whirred overhead, moaning and creaking as they spun lazily.

"Maybe they're on smoke break?" Yang said.

She walked up to the counter and pressed a finger down on the little bell. It rang shrilly. Nothing. Nobody came hurrying to greet them. They all exchanged looks.

"Anyone here?" Ruby called hopefully. No answer came. It was sorta creepy how silent the place was, actually.

Yang shrugged. "Eh, screw this."

And without any warning, she vaulted the reception counter. She looked around, frowning in thought, and then pushed past the door leading into what Ruby guessed was some kinda office. A few moments later she returned, dangling a key by its chain from her finger.

"What in all of Remnant are you doing?" Weiss exclaimed, glaring at her.

"Like Rubes said; We don't have time to waste. We can pay them later when we've saved everyone's butt if they still feel like charging us."

Weiss huffed but seemed mollified. Enough so, at least, that she moved in close to Yang again when they headed out towards their room. It turned out to be an exact copy of the other one, only not gross and dirty. The bed was made and Ruby's eyes lingered on it before she shook herself and rounded on her team. She could sleep when they'd solved this. The rest of them looked tired, too.

"Okay," she said, forcing some cheer into her voice. "Let's go."

Nobody looked enthusiastic about it all but they got started. Even inside, the temperatures were slowly dropping and Ruby scoured the room for blankets, towels, and anything else she could find stowed away. Blake smiled gratefully as Ruby settled next to her, wrapping a blanket over both their shoulders and snuggling in under her arm.

"Find anything?"

Blake shook her head. "Nothing relevant. Then again, without knowing what I'm looking for, how do I know what's relevant?"

Ruby peered down at the headlines as Blake scrolled along them with flicks of her thumb, occasionally opening up a new tab and starting the process over.

"It's mostly about the protests," Ruby muttered, squinting against the glare of the screen. "Lots of people injured, faunus and police clashing, bla bla bla. We know all of that already."

"We do," Blake confirmed, smiling tiredly.

Ruby bit her lip and tried to think. It was like running through hip-deep water.

"So is there anything weird about any of em. You know, in where or who does it? Stuff that's out of place."

"Nothing so far."

Ruby cleared her throat and was about to ask Weiss how she was doing when the girl held up a finger for silence. Ruby zipped her lips shut and a moment later, the other girl began to speak into her scroll to someone.

"Father?" A moment passed. "Father. Can you hear me?"

Annoyance crossed Weiss' face and she stomped a foot down into the shaggy carpeting along the floor.

"Father. The connection is shorting out. Can you -?"

She winced and yanked the scroll away from her ear, swearing in Atlesian. Something about someone's mother. Ruby wasn't sure. She cast Weiss a questioning look.

"Nothing," Weiss spat. "Just static."

"Should we come up with some sorta theory, like in those cop tv shows? I mean, we don't even know what is going on, really."

Blake looked up from her scroll. It's glare lit up her pale face and the deepening frown upon it.

"Maybe it's like, some sorta beacon, making people go crazy," Ruby suggested wiggling her fingers beside her head. "Or maybe that's just a side effect and it's targeting the grimm. Kinda like you guys around Yang when she wears something low-cut, only for monsters."

Weiss snorted. "As if you are not staring just as much as the rest of us."

Ruby flashed back to the press of Yang's lips to her throat and she shivered, looking down at her boots. They needed polishing.

"I don't. Not like… It's just-"

Yang put an arm around her shoulder. "It's okay, sis. They'll grow and even if they don't, just look at Weiss. Plenty hot, even with her itty-bitty-"

"That's quite enough, thank you," Weiss cut in.

Her cheeks were all red and Ruby cleared her throat.

"Anyways. Could be something like that, right? Maybe they're cranking up the signal and that's why our scrolls are being weird."

"Some sort of weapon, perhaps," Blake mused. "It would be an efficient way to destroy an enemy city."

"If such technology existed, my father would know of it. Atlas is far ahead of military technology and he works closely with them. It may be possible, some day but it is unlikely."

Blake didn't seem entirely convinced and scribbled something on her notepad. "What, then?"

Weiss considered for a moment.

"That crazy guy's our best lead. What was it he said?"

"Buncha gibberish," Yang.

"No," Weiss said sharply, raising a finger. "It was nonsense to us because we did not understand the context. To him it made perfect sense, just like it made perfect sense to kidnap dozens of people, the way it does for most extremists."

"If it was some kinda signal, why kidnap people, anyways?" Ruby interjected. "I guess that doesn't make sense."

Blake nodded in grudging agreement. "So… The crazy guy. Where does that take us? We know that he wasn't working alone. Someone is behind all of this."

"There's the hostage," Yang said. "There wasn't any sign that they were killed there. If they're alive, we could look for them and probably find the crazy guy's buddies"

Weiss cleared her throat.

"Why hostages? Surely, if they wanted to ransom them, they would have done so already."

"Unless…" Blake said. "Unless they are waiting for the situation to worsen. If the grimm are all but beating down our door, not only would Vale be unable to send Hunters or police to find them and rescue the hostage, but they'd have no time to find any other course of action. They would be forced to pay."

"Not if we get there and stop them," Ruby said.

She straightened as she spoke, her hands on her hips, steel gathering in her voice. She was still tired but determination sent a fresh wave of revitalising energy through her. Yang grinned at her.

"Hell yeah. So let's get back to finding them. Has anyone found anything?"

"It's chaos," Blake reported. "Cars set on fire. Stores looted. The grimm got through, for a little while, at the eastern wall. Ozpin managed to secure the area, though. That's the last there is."

"Wasn't much better before that," Yang said. "A faunus protest that turned back when they met with some neighbourhood watch. Uh - I think that might've been the one we ran into. Protest about worker's going missing at the water processing plant and City Hall not doing enough to fix it. Two rival teams and their fans tearing into another at the end of a game. It just keeps going and going."

"Let's get back to the one thing we do know," Weiss said. "What do we know, for certain, about the man we captured?"

"Crazy," Yang said.

"Not working alone," Blake added. "And cleaning up the tracks."

"Loyalty to the point of zealotry," Weiss interjected. "Willing to die for whatever cause he fights."

Ruby frowned, trying to think of something to add. "He was all stinky."

Okay. So maybe she could've done better there… But it wasn't her fault her team mates were all so smart and had already nabbed all the good clues.

Blake's eyes widened.

"Say that again."

Ruby pouted. "He was stinky."

Blake turned her back, paced a few steps across the room, then turned to face them again, eyes far away.

"You're right. He was. It wasn't that he was unclean, either. He stank of... Yang! Where did you say people had gone missing?"

Yang looked amused and confused.

"Water processing plant."

A slow, dangerous smile slipped into place and exposed Blake's delicately pointed canine teeth. "They are in the sewers. By the water processing plants. We've got them."

* * *

The weather had worsened considerably and Ruby vaguely recalled wincing as the wind bit into her when they left the little motel room. It wasn't long until the discomfort had faded into numbness. The rest of her teammates weren't much better off, by the looks of things. Weiss and Yang had managed to stave off the temperature for a while, but even their attempts at keeping up a cheerful conversation had faded into a stubborn goal-orientated silence as they kept shambling forward. The snow was already ankle-deep and the road underneath was slick ice. The first pratfall had been funny but it wasn't long before Ruby worried about them falling and never rising again.

And yet they couldn't stop. They were close now, she knew, and there wasn't any time for rest. Weiss walked next to her, arm slung around Ruby's waist. Whether to offer support or to lean on her, she wasn't even sure. The falling snow was so thick that the white-out was all but complete. Their scrolls still held out, though, and they'd followed the GPS on Yang's for the last hour.

"Here," a muffled voice said, echoing strangely through the night. "Ruby. We're here!"

Someone shook her and Ruby realised it was Yang talking to her. They were standing in front of a boring, sunken sort of building, featuring a lot of gray concrete. The door in front of them was unmarked and Blake vanished for a moment and then it opened from the inside.

The door opened up on a little vestibule. A cramped but cozy little area, with old plushy furniture squished into one corner and a scuffed old counter with stacks of leaflets and other trinkets where a receptionist might sit during working hours. Ruby's eyes lingered on the sofas and she wished for nothing more than to snuggle up there. Her legs felt leaden and she could feel herself wobble drunkenly from side to side as she walked.

"Let's take five," she mumbled. "Catch our breath… Then we… Then we go."

There was a general murmur of assent. Ruby leaned up against the receptionist's counter. She didn't trust herself to remain awake if she sat. Someone came up to her and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. A cup of hot cocoa, the sickeningly sweet stuff made by a machine and served in a plastic cup, was pressed into her hands, and Ruby drank of it slowly. Minutes went by and the snow that seemed to have made its way through Ruby's ears and into her mind slowly dissipated, taking with it some of the fog it had lingered over her thoughts.

Yang was only a few feet away, watching her intently. Blake and Weiss stood huddled together, several blankets wrapped around them. They were shivering but seemed to be okay. Wiggling her toes and fingers, Ruby found them all there and responsive. Good. She drank the last of the drink some blasphemous sort dared call hot chocolate and tossed the cup into a nearby bin. Cos they might be in a hurry and saving the world, but littering still wasn't cool.

"Everybody okay?" she asked.

It came out croaky and it was a little painful to speak. Maybe that's why her team's response was all nonverbal. Yang nodded. Weiss and Blake disentangled themselves, letting the blankets drop to the floor, and fetching their weaponry. They all took a moment, visibly steeling themselves. And then they set off into the building.

A short corridor led them past the toilet's for visitors and to a door. It creaked loudly in the otherwise silent night and Ruby winced as she followed Yang through it. Another hallway led off into the darkness until Yang hit the lightswitch. Blinking against the stinging lights, Ruby saw a bunch of coat hooks at her right hand, lining the walls, with shelves above and below them, for for hats and boots respectively. To their left, a door was left open to reveal a large room.

Rows upon rows of tables spread out along one wall. Newspapers and magazines lay spread across them and all the chairs were pushed in neatly, with the exception of one poor lonely chair laying toppled in the middle of the little aisle formed between tables and the wall.. A little cafeteria or tiny in-house restaurant had been squeezed into the far corner, with sandwiches on display in a glass cupola.

Ruby took a moment to watch and listen. There was the sound of the fluorescent lights overhead, air ducts slowly toiling, and the quick, excited breathing of her teammates. No fiends came hopping out of the corners. Ruby turned her back on the room.

"It's clear," she whispered, trying to sound all professional.

Yang took the lead to the door straight ahead, casting Blake a sideways glance with a hand on the door handle. Blake had Gambol Shroud in its pistol form and aimed right at the door. She nodded and with a pull, the door flew open.

Yang burst through, with Blake on her… Well, not tail, but following right after. Ruby went in next with Weiss bringing up the rear. The room beyond was huge. Huuuge. The lighting was dim here, with the same flourescent lights up ahead, but far, far up at ceiling level, maybe a hundred feet up. The scent hit Ruby next. Something foreign to her nose and kinda unpleasant at that. There was another smell underneath that. Something sweet.

Ahead were a bunch of big circular… Well, they looked like big pools, made out of steel, with some sort of structure up on top that stretched across it all. She couldn't see from where she was standing but Ruby had a feeling that'd be where the water went. There were about two dozen of them.

Walkways crisscrossed some thirty feet above, supported by steel pillars, with a couple of little buildings here and there. Control rooms, maybe? Or something for boss-type people to stand and keep an eye on things? Ruby moved to the left, walking carefully along the smooth concrete floors, eyes alert. She couldn't see anyone around and the quiet of the large room pressed in on her. She shook herself, sending water droplets still clinging and weighing her hair down spattering all over the place.

"We gotta hurry," she said, looking back over her shoulder at the others. "Let's split up with our partners. C'mon Weiss."

Weiss took a step forward but Yang caught her by the shoulder and pulled her back.

"No. If they get the jump on you, neither of you are any good in hand-to-hand. Blake and Weiss go together. I'm going with you, Ruby."

She wasn't wrong and Ruby could see she was preparing to be stubborn about this. Maybe now was a bad time to argue just to make a point. So Ruby just nodded and though she frowned, Weiss walked over to team up with Blake without comment.

"We go low," Ruby said. "You guys go high. Stay where we can see you, 'kay?"

Weiss and Blake took a right, heading toward the metal stairs leading up to the walkways. Yang took a left, staying in the shadows and moving slowly. It was kinda cramped, with large pipes zig-zagging and weaving their way over to their respective pool in the middle of the building. There were stacks upon stacks of more pipes prepared in the corner there were headed towards. It was cold. Barren. Empty.

"I don't like it when you do that," Ruby mumbled. "You could just ask next time."

"What?"

Yang was still staring ahead, alert for danger. Maybe she hadn't heard?

"I'm the leader. You shouldn't tell me that we're gonna do something. You should - um - you should ask. Suggest."

Yang stopped at one of the large pipes, looking at Ruby over her shoulder, before walking off as though she hadn't spoken.

She ducked under the pipe and Ruby hurried after her. Some weird hot, alien feeling was rising up inside her, making her clench her hands into fists and lengthen her stride. They were coming up to some sort of technical area, with computer-related gadgets, levers and switchboards and Ruby jogged to catch up. Yang took a left, through a half-opened door and into a room that smelled of dust and oil. Only a few of the lights over in a corner came on, dimly illuminating what looked like a little workshop. There were several heavy workbenches, much like the ones back at Beacon, only dirtier and with less fancy tech. Old rickety shelves were stocked full with lots of gear, most of it probably useful for one thing or another. If you could find it.

By the time she spotted Yang, her sister was already going through the room, picking up flashlights, checking them, and stowing them into an old discarded gym bag someone had left in a corner.

"We're not done talking," Ruby snapped. She recognized the words. She'd meant to say them… But the way they came out, in a low, angry snarl… That she hadn't meant.

Yang's expression softened, annoyance fading away.

"You're a good leader, Rubes, but you're still my little sister."

"Not when we're working as a team. Then I'm your leader first and your sister second. Ozpin choose me to do this! Maybe he shouldn't have but he did."

Yang shook her head, pretending to look around for more stuff as an excuse not to look at her.

"It doesn't work like that."

Something inside Ruby snapped and she seized Yang by the front of her shirt, forcing her to at least look at her.

"You're not mom!"

There was a flash of surprise on Yang's face, just for a second, and Ruby took a vicious sort of pleasure in it, watching her wide-eyed stare and slack face. Teeth bared, Yang's vision filled with a dark scarlet and a sudden hot, flash of pain across Ruby's cheek sent her stumbling.

She blinked and it wasn't until she saw Yang's raised arm that she realized she'd struck her. There was a moment of absolute, dreadful silence. Yang was staring at her hand, looking… Lost. Scared. Her eyes were fading back to lilac, tears leaving them glistening as they ran down her cheek.

"Ruby… I don't know - I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-"

She caught Ruby by both shoulders and pulled her in close. Yang was shaking. They both were, as the sudden spike of adrenaline coursed through them, but she was warm and Ruby felt too lost to do anything.

"Are you okay?" Yang said. "I mean, course you are. You're a tough cookie."

She laughed nervously, the way she only did when she was going half-crazy with nerves, and Ruby couldn't recall having heard that very often. She kept her arms wrapped around Ruby and pulled back enough to study her face, warm fingers tracing along the stinging spot on her cheek. Ruby's eyes drifted shut for a moment and when she opened them, Yang's gaze had turned questioning.

She leaned in, carefully, haltingly, in a slow stutter-step, and pressed her lips to the spot at Ruby's cheekbone.

"There… All better," she whispered.

Yang moved back just enough for Ruby feel a brush of warm breath on her cheek, then another kiss, and another. Soft lips passed down along her jawline, sending searing little jolts of electricity down along Ruby's neck. She wrapped her arms around Yang, squeezing her close, letting the warmth of her body seep into her own, and she felt Yang draw a shuddering breath. Her next kiss fell over the dark locks bogged down by melting sleet across Ruby's forehead.

Ruby couldn't look away. Some part of her knew she should, but she didn't. Instead she pressed herself up against Yang, went up onto her tippy-toes and kissed her hard. A soft sound escaped Yang's lips, something part yelp of surprise, part soft moan, and Ruby took full advantage. A little voice, at the far back of her mind was whispering, trying to say something, but the need roaring through her blood drowned out the words. Yang whimpered and met her, her thigh insinuating itself between Ruby's.

There was a bit of flat wall between the door they'd come through and all the shelves, and Ruby pushed Yang up against it. Canisters of petrol clattered as Yang bumbled into them, but they were both too far gone to little voice kept on nagging her, but it was like her headphones were on and the music was the sounds she drew out of Yang. She needed more. More flesh, more heat, more sounds of desperate abandon.

Ruby dragged her nails, short and blunt, down along Yang's back until she had her ass in her hands, squeezing it and pressing the other girl closer still, hips shifting forward to grind down on the leg still in between her own.

"Ruby…" She panted. "We need to stop."

Ruby wasn't sure why Yang was agreeing with the voice, but she wasn't really stopping herself, so Ruby didn't either.

"Ruby. Stop."

Yang's hands pressed against her shoulders, her breath hot on Ruby's neck. Her entire body was tingling with need and she struggled a little against the opposing force.

"Ruby," Yang snarled, sounding afraid now, almost desperate. "Stop!"

She shoved - hard - and Ruby almost fell over herself and stared at Yang, her dilated pupils, her swollen lips, the way her ragged breathing had her chest heaving.

"What the heck was that!?" She shrieked.

"I-" Yang shook her head and closed her eyes firmly. "I think you were right earlier, Rubes. It's just like back in the motel. Something's wrong with all of us or something."

It stung to hear that but just for a moment. Yang was right and if she'd been thinking clearly, she would've realised it right away. Maybe it was just the sleep deprivation. It couldn't be more than a few hours until dawn. She nodded to herself in approval of that idea. That was totally it.

"We can figure that stuff out later," she said. "Stuff to do, remember?"

"Yeah… Stuff."

Yang's eyes kept drifting sideways and she maintained a careful distance between them as they moved forward. The technical stuff seemed to be working, as far as Ruby could tell, and they steered their steps towards the central area with the tanks. Ladders led up the sides of each circular basin and Ruby carefully made her way up one, arms complaining with the effort all the way. Weiss and Blake were nearby, twenty feet above them, disappearing into one of the little offices-slash-watch posts.

She could see most of the factory floor from where she stood, eight tanks in total. Being so close to the water, Ruby realized the weird sweet smell wasn't coming from it. It did smell, though. Something stagnant and unpleasant. The waters were frothy and a light coppery colour. That couldn't be right, right? Even if they did make the water cleaner when it came here, it couldn't possibly be that gross when it came it from rivers up the mountains.

"You see anything?" Yang called.

"No."

Something flickered under the light from overhead and Ruby peered closer.

"Hang on."

There was definitely something there, a stark white amongst the bubbles. Ruby frowned and reached into water, thankful for the leather gloves as she scooped the item up out of the murky depths.

It took her brain a moment to connect the physical distinction of what she saw seeing into meaning. It was chalky white and about the size of her pinky-finger nail. A tooth. A human tooth.

Ruby flinched back and her wet boot slid off the step. For a long, panicked moment she was in freefall, and then her desperately scrabbling hands caught onto the edge of the tank and she managed to steady herself, clinging desperately to the steel framework and the ladder.

A few inches closer to the water now, chin almost resting on the edge of the tank, the stench was almost enough to make her gag. This close, she could see more flickers of white in the water. Teeth. A lot of them. Hundreds, or maybe thousands, swirled around in the waters.

Ruby pressed her lips together hard to stifle a scream - and the nausea swirling low in her stomach - pointedly looking away.

She was a huntress, she told herself firmly. A huntress kept her head cool and stayed in control. A huntress most certainly did not barf no matter how weird stuff got. Swallowing carefully, Ruby descended the staircase and glanced around. Yang had stayed close by to cover her back and worry furrowed her eyebrows together as she watched Ruby intently. Ruby said nothing and walked past her, cutting through the center of the building, between the water tanks. The stale scent permeated the air here and Ruby pulled her cloak up to cover her mouth and nose, breathing through the fabric.

Up ahead, she could see Weiss making a sharp beckoning gesture from on top of one of the platforms, having come out from one of the little buildings overhead that were attached to the catwalks. It was still quiet, with nothing but the slow whirring of instruments, the hum of fluorescent lights, and the distant howl of the wind outside. Way, way too quiet. Where were the guards? The flashing lights and screeching alarms?

Actually… Where were the people who were supposed to be working here? Cos there were clearly some stuff they needed to start fixing. A slow shiver slid down Ruby's back. Were they in the tanks? Her stomach squirmed and twisted and she focused on slow, steady breaths.

The thing she'd found turned out to be a little notebook. Like the diary she'd kept when she was younger, only without the lock to keep it out of Yang's prying hands.

Blake walked up to them, looking around and listening carefully before she opened up the book. Ruby sidled up to her and Blake absentmindedly wrapped an arm around her shoulders just like she had all the times they'd gone off to study, or watched a downloaded movie of dubious legality on Ruby's scroll.

It was a report book, of sorts, where the personnel working the night shift left notes to the day shift about whatever may be going on. Everything started off normal, with complaints of a broken coffee machine and good-natured banter. It didn't stay that way. Reports of blockages down the sewer pipes, rats, sightings of other unidentified things. People started getting sick or stopped showing up to work, leaving a lot of grumpy co-workers needing to fill in, and even those seemed to be affected by whatever it had been driving people loopy in town.

"There's something here," Blake said, amber eyes scanning the room. "Or there was."

"Yes." Weiss snatched the book out of Blake's hands and flipped a few pages back. "Look here. One of them headed down the sewers to check for something. Didn't sign off that evening and missed his next shift. When he comes back he's… Different."

"More confident," Blake added, nodding.

Ruby swallowed. "Do you think something happened to him down there?"

"Maybe," Yang said. "Or he just snapped from working too many night shifts. Do you remember how crazy I went that one summer working-"

Weiss cleared her throat and Yang cut off mid-sentence.

"Sorry," she muttered. "Off topic."

"As much as it pains me to say this, all this trouble started down in the sewers," Weiss said. "I think that's where we will get to the bottom of this."

Ruby wrinkled up her nose. "I guess I was throwing away these boots anyways."

* * *

"Everybody ready?" Ruby said, voice pitched low.

They all stood gathered around a square metal lid with a sign next to nearby labelling it "Sewer Entrance". The supports of a ladder had been worked into the structure and disappeared underneath the lid. The other three nodded.

"Blake. You go first. If you see anyone, take them down quickly. We'll go in all sneaky-like."

Yang crouched down and grabbed the handle of the to the covering metal lid. With her free hand, she counted down on her fingers. Three. Two. One.

Yang pulled back the lid and Blake vanished down through the open manhole an instant later. Her boots thudded on stone below and there was a horrible, drawn out moment of silence until Blake said.

"It's clear."

Yang followed immediately. Then Ruby jumped and last of all, Weiss descended the ladder with dignity. The sewer pipe was a lot larger than Ruby had imagined, enough so that even Yang didn't have to walk with her head bowed. The rest was pretty much as expected. Walk-ways on either side, with a trough in the middle where the water poured through sluggishly. It stank but not the way she'd through it would. There was more of that weird, sickly sweet smell, almost like molasses from the brewery back at Patch, but with something sharp, almost chemical underlying it. It stung at Ruby's nose and she focused on staring ahead in hopes of ignoring the smelliness.

Lights were fastened overhead at even intervals, but most of them weren't working, leaving great patches of darkness here and there. Ruby dug into her bag and fetched the borrowed flashlights, handing each of her teammates one. Blake shook her head when one was offered to her.

"I can see in the dark," she said. "You take it. I'm going to walk ahead."

Ruby swallowed but nodded in agreement. She didn't like Blake sneaking off ahead of them but she knew it was the best way to do this. With the flashlights, any sentry would see them coming. Blake, on the other hand, would see them way before they saw her. Unless they were faunus, too, of course. That'd suck.

"We'll be right behind you," she promised.

She thought she could see Blake smile before she melted into the darkness and disappeared.

The rest of them followed about thirty seconds later, walking with at a careful pace. The further they walked, the rarer functioning lights became. Even the ones that worked emitted less light than they should and Ruby peered up at one of them as they walked past. There was some fungus or algae clinging to the lamps. Ruby couldn't get a good look in the dark light and they couldn't stop to check, with Blake scouting ahead, but it looked like it was moving. Twitching and swaying, the way seaweed would with the movement of the waves. It was just that there weren't any waves. Or wind, really.

They walked through the thickening darkness and Ruby could feel tension gathering along her spine. Her heart thudded in her ears and her fingers clenched hard on Crescent Rose.

A slender shape appeared in the darkness, slender and indistinct, and Ruby raised her weapon's stock to her shoulder, peering down its sight. Another form appeared, this one on the ground, with the first crouched above it. Ruby moved her finger close to the trigger but didn't rest it against the metal.

The form rose and Ruby finally recognized Blake. A man lay at her feet, propped up against the wall right next to a large hole in the concrete, his body slack and motionless. Yang came to a halt a few steps away, eyes wide.

"Is he-?"

Blake's eyes flicked to her and she raised a finger to her lips in a sharp motion. Yang fell silent immediately. Footsteps, the heavy thuds of boots on stone, echoed up through the gap. A voice, deep and as rough as the concrete surrounding them, came through

"Brian. Your shift ended fifteen sodding minutes ago. What're you doing?"

A man came through, bent over at the waist to fit through the narrow opening, and his eyes widened in surprise for a split second. Then Blake was upon him, grabbing onto his checkered shirt, pulling him toward her. He toppled forward, off balance, and Blake used his weight against him, spinning him around with her body as the fulcrum. His face smacked into the wall with a meaty sound of impact and blood spattered over the concrete as he staggered back in a daze. Blake wasted no time, scything the man's legs from out under him with a low kick.

She descended upon the man from behind, snuck her arm around his throat, and tightened it viciously. The man thrashed and kicked as Blake held on, legs flailing and sending foul-smelling water spattering everywhere. Then the strength began to leave him and he slowly grew limp. Blake kept the choke up for several seconds after he'd passed out and then let go, shoving him down along the wall next to his friend.

She went very still, almost seeming to hold her breath, and listened for several long seconds. There was no outcry, no blaring alarms or stomping boots. Blake was definitely the awesomest ninja ever.

Once satisfied that nobody was coming, Blake unsheathed Gambol Shroud and began to cut the men's clothing into ribbons, fashioning makeshift gags and restraints from them in only a couple of minutes. Meanwhile, Weiss and Yang took up position at either side of the gap in the wall.

"I don't like the idea of having them behind us," Yang said, frowning at Blake's handywork.

The faunus didn't look up or stop what she was doing.

"It would be simpler to kill them," she agreed, offering out Gambol Shroud and tying yet another knot, one-handed, around their captive's wrists. "If you think you can bring yourself to do that."

Yang grimaced and shook her head. "I guess we just try to hide them or something."

Blake's teeth flashed white in the darkness. "Yes."

When she was done, Yang hauled the men a little further into the sewer pipe, placing them in patch of darkness. Hopefully nobody would come looking and stumble over them. It wasn't perfect but it was as good as they'd get right now. They gathered around the jagged hole where it looked the concrete had cracked and fallen apart. There was evidence of someone taking tools, maybe a pickaxe or something, to widen it.

They all exchanged looks and then they slipped into the darkness. For a few steps they had to walk single file through a narrow passage with rough rock at either side, raking and tearing at them like razorblades whenever they got too close. Ruby couldn't help but to envision a single person with a heavy automatic weapon at the end of the passage, sending countless rounds howling down at them. Ruby shivered and moved more quickly until, finally, the passage opened up into a large cave.

Water fell down upon them from up in the darkness where Ruby presumed the cave's ceiling was. Ahead, in the distance, firelight flickered. The air stank of something musty and dank. It sucked. Lots.

"Come on," she whispered. "Let's go."

They snuck down along the wall to the left. There was more of the strange growth. The fleshy, writhing mass moved along them as they passed, as though it could sense their presence. Some of the growths looked like stuff Ruby had seen in an anatomy book. Organs. Horrible, misshapen things, but that was what it looked like. They all kept a healthy distance and not just because of the smell. Major ick-age.

A hundred feet down the light downwards slope, along slippery rock and shale, they found a metal structure. Pens of stainless steel had been set up, sort of like at the slaughterhouse… No. Exactly like at that slaughterhouse. Barbed wire had been used to reinforce the hundred square feet perimeter.

Ruby held up a closed fist and the others stopped, crouching low. She patted Blake's shoulder, pointed at her eyes and then swept her hand ahead. The faunus immediately moved off into the shadows, scouting ahead. She didn't need to see what was inside the pen. Or what wasn't. Ruby found restraints, chains secured in the ground with large metal pins. Each pin supporting five chains and five matching cuffs. Eight pins. A total of forty people crammed together. The floor stank of waste and death. There were rags strewn here and there. A pair of spectacles crunched under Ruby's boot and, as she bent down to inspect them, she found a little teddy bear forgotten on the ground. One of its legs had gone missing.

Ruby clenched her jaw and tried to blink away the tears. They fell anyways, hot streaks running down her cheeks, and she turned her back on the prison. There may still be people someplace else to save… Or else, killers to be brought to justice. She wiped at her face with the sleeve of her jacket and walked past Yang and Weiss without speaking, heading down the slope.

She must have walked a little faster than before because she caught up with Blake after only a little while, walking past her and onwards. The lights turned out to be little campfires with tents set up around them. Trash lay scattered around each camp: Tins of canned food. Candy wrappers. Plastic soda bottles. People had definitely lived here for a while though it seemed like they weren't around any more. A little bit past the camp, the cave ended in a large mound of rubble, countless tonnes of stone blocking the path that led… Somewhere.

To the right, just ahead of the camp, Ruby finally saw something that didn't fit in with all the rest. An arched doorway, ten feet high and five feet broad, had been carved out of the rock. Along its entire length, all the way down to the floor, strange designs had been etched. It looked like a language, but none that Ruby had ever seen or even heard of, the designs slithering together into a single entity. From somewhere inside she could her softly. Dozens of them all blending together in a slow, rhythmic chant. She wasn't sure how she could tell but she was certain it was in the same language as the writing.

Yang, Weiss and Blake were close behind and they all snuck up to the flat stone wall by the door, peering inside. The area ahead was lit up by stone braziers filled with coal. There were torches, too, but for the most part, the lighting was provided by a bunch of modern dust-powered lanterns. It provided a fair amount of illumination. Ruby wished it hadn't. The floor had been polished smooth in a path from the door onwards, reaching a little incline and leading up a ziggurat-style pyramid-like design that looked as though it had been cut in half. The sharp, smooth end stood before a pool of pitch-black, eerily still water. That wasn't the worst part.

At the top of the pyramid, a man stood with a knife raised above his head. A large, fat ruby stuck to the bottom of its hilt and the edge gleamed and stained with blood. More blood stuck to the altar, a simple stone slab at the center of the raised platform. More yet had run down the stairs, leaving the entire area covered in scarlet. That wasn't the worst part, either.

A circle of people in dark clothes sat in a loose circle around the pyramid, hands clasped, chanting as the blood stuck to their feet and legs. There was a low buzzing sound in the air, like static off a speaker, soaring and sinking in volume with their chanting. Bodies had been laid out around the altar in another, wider, semi-circle outside of the first.

That still wasn't the worst part. A few feet off the pyramid, hovering mid-air above the black pool, was a broad, dark red gash in the air. As if their world was the canvas of a painter that had been slashed in a fit of anger, leaving a smear of red paint in its wake. It pulsed and shimmered in rhythm with the chanting and Ruby could see it slowly, slowly expand.

And even that wasn't the worst part. Something moved and stirred in the shadows. Several somethings, actually, and they seemed to have noticed that their little party had gotten crashed. At first Ruby wasn't sure what she was seeing. They were monsters, for sure, but they didn't really look like grimm. Grimm, at least, had some coherent form. This was something else.

The first thing she managed to make sense of was the eye. It was huge, almost as big as the doorway they'd just walked through. She blinked and tried to focus to take in more details. It was like watching something through troubled waters, shifting and moving beyond her perception. Some details came through, though. The eye sat in the middle of a big, scarred, grey mass of scabbed skin and bulging veins, vaguely round in shape but broader than it was tall, that floated in mid-air. Slimy, stalk-like protrusions jutted out of its body, each with its own, smaller eye, each looking straight at them. Beyond the eye, a vast, toothy maw opened up into a broad smile.

Ruby's first response in most fights would be to move - and to do so quickly. Either to charge straight at her foe and take them by surprise if she knew what she was dealing with, or to move out of the way to harry them with hit-and-fade tactics the way she had Cardin only a few weeks ago. With this - thing - she decided to go for option two and in a burst of speed, she set off toward a dark corner of the cave where the man-made light wouldn't reach.

A moment later, she found herself on the ground, with no idea how she had gotten there. Her knees and hands stinging from the rough rock she now lay face-down across. She scrambled to get up, fingers closing around Crescent Rose's haft… Only to trip half-way on the way up and fall over again. Her semblance wasn't working… And Crescent Rose suddenly felt like… Like the heavy monstrosity of dustforged steel that it was. Upon closer inspection, she saw something black oozing from the palm of one hand. No. Not black. Red. It was blood. She was without her semblance, without her aura, and without any of the strength and speed they would give her. Panic slammed into her and she hauled at Crescent Rose for all she was worth, with both arms, and managed to haul it with her as she ran over toward the shadows.

"It's wrecking our aura," she squeaked as she ran. "Get out of the way!"

One of its eyestalks turned over towards her, green luminescence gathering, and at the last second, she could feel the strength return to her body. She zipped forward in a blur and a scattering of rose petals just before a ray of green energy streaked across the room, burning a large hole in her flapping cloak and boring straight through one of the statues and utterly disintegrating its top half. Oh crap oh crap oh crap.

Gunfire roared for a second and then abruptly stopped with a yelp of pain from Blake. Ruby could vaguely see Blake bent over and clutching at her wrist.

"We've got to stop the ritual-thing!" Yang hollered. "Just don't get hit!"

"Thank you for that piece of brilliant advice!" Weiss shouted back, joining Yang in a charge.

They still had the whole crowd of cultists between them and the creature, though, which meant it was time for a distraction. And nothing, as far as Ruby knew, was as distracting as dust-propelled metal. Crouching in the shadows, she settled Crescent Rose's stock against her shoulder, took careful aim down its sight, and opened fire.

The recoil slammed against her, the roar of the gun's report washed over her, and Ruby grinned as round after round tore through the air and into the creature's body. Black sludgy, blood spattered everywhere and the creature jerked in mid-air. Its stalks stiffened and one of them fixed its blood-red eye on Ruby. Oh crap. What hit her wasn't fatigue, though, or weakness, but a overwhelming power seizing her and tossing her backwards. She flailed helplessly for a long, horrible moment and then she hit something slender and hard before crashing into the rock wall.

She gasped as the impact knocked the wind out of her, crumpling on the ground. Through blurring eyes welling up with tears, she could see the creature turn in mid-air, its main eyes narrowing and focusing on her.

Ruby could suddenly feel the bitter cold of the place, the rough stone under her hands, and impending, inevitable death coming her way. She swallowed down a moan of pain and rolled to the side, slowed by the that horrible gaze, but enough to get away. Crescent Rose wasn't so lucky. There was a thunderclap and Ruby felt a sharp sting at her cheek and neck as rock shattered where she'd been moments ago. She didn't stop to investigate, springing lightly to her feet and running zig-zag across the slick floors until she found a small grouping of stalagmites… Or stalactites. Big droppy rock things, whatever they were called.

Out of sight, she could feel her strength returning to her limbs once more. It was the eye. Whenever the big central eye looked at her, they were vulnerables… But it couldn't look everywhere at the same time.

"Stay clear of the big eye!" Ruby shouted as loudly as she could. "It's the one that takes out your aura!"

She looked around the corner. Yang, Weiss and Blake had gotten bogged down in the gang of cultists and were fighting desperately, surrounded on all sides. Ruby could see the flashing of knives and hear the dull thuds of cudgels striking rock. They weren't trained warriors… But she could also see Weiss dodge blow after blow, holding her own attack even when she had openings.

Glancing around the other side of her cover, Ruby could see that the creature's main eye was focused on the battle. None of them had auras. Any blow of Myrtenaster would probably be lethal. Weiss backed up one step too many, stumbling over one of the cultist's fallen comrades, and taking a glancing blow to the hip.

Yang seemed to be doing okay, dancing out of the way of blades or deflecting them with Ember Celica's armour before taking down her opponents. Blake was fought hand to hand, too, her gun-arm tucked in close to her body, using her speed and grace to stay clear of attacks. She grabbed one cultist, used her weight and momentum to take his balance, and turned him into an incoming streak of grey from one of the monster's eyestalks. Blake's eyes widened in horror as the man's limbs locked and his body turned right in front of her.

All the while, the scar in the fabric of reality was still growing and Ruby could see the head cultist guy still chanting, both arms raised above his head, voice booming unnaturally throughout the cavern.

They needed to end this. The creature was dripping black ichor from the holes she'd put through it. It wasn't shooting at them as much as it had been before. She'd hurt it, for sure. If she could hurt it then she could kill it, just like any other grimm. Ruby glanced at Crescent Rose where it lay on the ground. She'd get one shot. If she missed it, she'd die.

In a flurry of movement, she surged across the room, plucking her scythe up off the ground, and landing in a smooth crouch behind another outcropping of rock. Her heart pounded with excitement… And then sank. The haft and the gunbarrel within had been bent to the shape of a half-moon. It was useless. The scythe-blade was still intact, though, and she'd prepared for just such an event.

Biting down on her lower lip, Ruby fiddled in the dark with her weapon, finding the two buttons hidden into the design where the haft of the scythe met its blade. There was a click and the two parts separated, a part of the barrel following along, and with a twist forming the hilt of an inwardly curved sword.

Ruby took a deep breath. Three. Two. One. Now!

Cold winds whipped her hair back as she shot through the darkness, eyes narrowed against the stinging, and focused on her target. It saw her at the last second and jerked to the side. Sorcery howled past her in the scent of burned hair but Ruby was too focused for it to mean anything. The swing of her sword took the creature a couple of inches above its horrid, twisted mouth.

Blood. Cold and sticky, it spurted everywhere as Ruby carved a furrow half a foot deep and twice as long into the creature's body, coming to a half right in front of it. It should've killed it. Should've. Nothing should be able to survive something like that… And yet, one of its eyestalks, the one that had thrown Ruby half-way across the cavern, swiveled towards her, something like heat shimmers already gathering around in. Ruby ducked and darted forward, in under the creature's body. Hacking and stabbing at its slick, gray skin from below. Blood and cold, slimy things wriggled out of it. It was dying, Ruby could tell, but she didn't stop. Not as the creature's innards splattered out across the floor, nor when it began to slowly descend to the ground. She didn't stop until it lay twitching before her and she could shove her sword straight into the middle of its central eye.

The body grew still… But it didn't dissolve. Ruby stared at it. It stank… The way the grimm shouldn't, hadn't... It wasn't a grimm. So what was it? Ruby shook her head, shedding black ichor the way Zwei would water and mud after a run in the rain. It could wait.

The portal was widening… And she could see something move and stir within it. Charging onwards, blood dripping off her blade, she kept her vision locked on the burning scarlet light. Her team could handle themselves. Ruby didn't trust that she could do what she needed to do if she saw them in trouble… So she didn't look.

The head cultist had his back to her and his chanting was reaching a thunderous crescendo, the words slithering through the air, echoing off the walls and coming at her from all directions. Ruby tried to shut it out, but it pushed in on her like a physical touch, a heavy weight on her shoulders. She fought against that presence as though wading through snow, and slowly began to gain traction. She ran straight across the cavern, picking up speed until her feet barely touched the ground and finally took the steps up to the top of the pyramid in a single bounding leap.

Her sword, with its inwardly curving blade, would function much like the scythe. It was a little clumsy to use but delivered an enormous amount of striking power right at its center. She raised the sword high and slammed it down against the cultist's turned back in a blow that would've cleaved a Beowulf from skull to pelvis.

At the last second, the man's recitation stopped. There was a flash of silver and a clang of steel on steel as he flashed around and raised his bejewelled dagger high, stopping the downward momentum of Ruby's sword cold.

For a long, terrible moment Ruby stared at him, goggle-eyed. His eyes were pitch black, pupils, sclera and all. They stood there, straining against one another, and even with a single arm, he managed to keep her sword off. He bared his teeth in a grin that revealed sharp, needle-like teeth,and then he spoke, his words crisp, cool and somehow empty.

"A minor inconvenience, master," he said. "I shall resume the summoning shortly."

And then his knife flashed toward Ruby's she narrowly dodged, side-stepping in a pirouette that brought her sword down upon his head again. He slapped her blade aside with the palm of his hand and the lack of resistance sent Ruby sprawling forward. His dagger came down next, a vicious jab against the back of Ruby's spine. She hit the hard rock face-first and quickly rolled, dropping down two of the steps of the dias, and coming back up at her feet.

Eyes of darkest midnight studied her and the man cocked his head, as though listening to someone speaking from across a crowded room.

"Of course, master," he purred. "As you bid."

"When the enemy occupies high ground, do not confront him. If he attacks downhill, do not oppose him," Ruby muttered to herself, remembering one of uncle Qrow's 'bedtime stories'.

Her opponent stood a few steps up above her, waiting. She could take the risk, rushing up and try to get past him… Or she could wait. Her team would join her soon, she thought, and then it'd be four against one. It all came down to if time was on her side or on her opponent's. She could only guess, but he'd said he'd get started again on the summoning - probably whatever mumbo-jumbo he was getting up too - soon. That sounded to Ruby like she could wait him out and buy time.

So she moved with him, keeping their spacing even, retreating while he advanced. Her brilliant plan didn't last very long. The cultist snarled, spittle spraying as he charged at her, knife flickering. Ruby caught one blow on her sword, ducked the next, and the third scraped viciously against her hip. Her aura was depleting quickly. Soon her own blood would be adding to that already coating the polished stone underfoot. The sounds of the others fighting had stopped.

Ruby dodged wildly, relying heavily on her semblance to maintain the initiative, sweeping around her enemy. His knife flickered in the bright scarlet light bathing them both, catching blow after blow. She could feel her control slipping, a slow pulsing headache at the back of her skull rising with the extended use of her semblance, but she also knew she was getting to him. Each parry and dodge was a closer call than the next and Ruby pushed on, teeth gritted against the pain. Finally, her opening came as the head cultists took a step too close to her. She bent down low and swept his legs out from under him with a sweep of her legs. He hit the stone hard, skull cracking against it, and Ruby didn't hesitate to bring her sword down on his prone form.

His arm flashed up and instead of aura, or flesh, Ruby found her blade meet something unyielding. The arm was no longer an arm. Not really. The folds of the black robes were split upon the outline of a crooked, blade-like bony protrusion that formed to a point where once the wrist joint should have been. No aura impeded her attack and she sliced nearly all the way through the limb before a wild sweep of the gleaming dagger forced her to pull back.

Exhausted slammed into her and Ruby wobbled, knees trembling underneath her. She'd pushed too hard, for too long, and even if she could see that most of her enemy's arm hung dangling and useless at his side, it hadn't been enough. Behind him, the portal was still widening, now large enough to drive a bus through. Its light gleamed off the ruby's and the polished steel of the ritual dagger as he raised it above his head, face split in a too-wide grin of triumph.

"My master will savour your blood, little one," he purred. "And once he comes into our world he will devour your friend's innards while they watch."

Beneath his robes she could see things moving along the ground. Slick, black things, questing like unseeing hands across the stone, through the blood. Ruby took a slow, careful step backwards. Then another. On the third, she wobbled, and almost fell down the stairs. The lead cultist's eyes gleamed brighter at the show of weakness and he pounced, sweeping aside Ruby's sword with contemptuous ease, and pushing her back. They tumbled down the stairs and came to a halt at the hard ground beneath with a wet cough. Hard spurs of rock dug into Ruby's back and there was so much blood pooled underneath her that she could not tell if any was hers. She tried to squirm out of the way, but the cultist had settled astride her and she could feel… something powerful, cold and sinuous wrap around her waist.

"For you, my lord, I present this sacrifice," he cried out.

He raised the dagger his above his head. Ruby thrashed helplessly under his weight, getting nowhere. She tried to call upon her semblance but without any room to gather momentum, it did nothing. A strange fire gleamed off the dagger and then its tip slammed down towards Ruby's heart. She took a deep breath… and was about close her eyes when a bright silver light burst forth. A glyph had appeared a couple of inches above Ruby's chest and its adamant power kept death temporarily at bay as the dark cave lit up more and more.

The cultist snarled and slammed the blade down again, to no avail, and suddenly their surroundings were hot and bright. Ruby realized what it was a second before the man astride her did, but neither reacted in time. Yang, body a solid wreath of flame, charged bodily into the cultist and bowled him over. He rolled with her, tumbling along the ground, and shoved, pushing the off-balance Yang away. His robes were aflame but he barely seemed to notice. Blake came next, out of the shadows from the ruined stalactites and the dead monster, Gambol Shroud raising sparks as it met with the man's horribly malformed left arm. She slipped out of the way of a counter attack and Weiss stepped forth, raining down dust and destruction upon him. Razor-sharp shards of ice were followed by torrents of fire, and howling bolts of lightning.

Yang didn't hesitate, throwing herself into the fray once more, taking a shard of ice to the hip before slamming a fist into the man's back. He should've been dead from Weiss elemental assault alone but he wasn't. Yang's attack sent him to the ground and his weapon slid across the floor, but he bounced up as though it had been nothing, drawing a yelp of surprise as his other arm melted and shifted until it too was a swordlike spur of bone, slashing across Yang's abdomen. Her aura held, barely, but its flickers were weak now.

Ruby could see great big holes in the robes where blood should've been pouring out. It wasn't. It barely stained the cloth. Up above, she could see the altar gleam with a scarlet fire to mirror that of the portal. Grooves that had previously been invisible now shone along its surface. Like the portal… And the knife.

It hurt but Ruby got up off the ground. She crawled, slowly, across the rough rock floor, eye fixed on the fat ruby at the bottom of the dagger's hilt. Blake yelped in pain and Ruby could see her staggering back. Even as she did, Weiss ran Myrtenaster clean through the man's chest… And he laughed. A harsh, wheezing laugh, as he pulled the blade out of his chest. Weiss stared it shock as he seized her by her slender neck with a single hand, pulling the sword back to -

Ruby caught the dagger and slammed its pommel into the ground. For a moment. A single moment, just before the ruby met rock, she saw a flicker of motion in the portal. An eye, easily as large as the portal itself, stared at her. It saw her. See into her. Everything she had ever done, everything she had ever thought of doing, everything she ever might have done. It knew who she was, what she was, and it hated her with a seething passion. It was old. Older than this cave. Older than this world. And it was patient. One day it would come through that portal and destroy all things. But not today.

The ruby shattered. The head cultist's body crumpled and Weiss slipped out of his grasp. Blake did not take any chances and stepped in a second later, taking the man's head off his shoulders. The scarlet light of the portal dwindled… And died.

The thing… it was still inside her, though, pushing at the inside of her skull. She had seen it and it was still there, even if she couldn't see it, she could. Everything was spinning. Her heart pounded. If she had no eyes, she could not see.

"Ruby… What're you - RUBY!"

Ruby wasn't sure what happened past that. She might have passed out. Maybe. By the time she came to, she was someplace a little warmer and a little bit comfier. Everything hurt. Just… Everything. A fire crackled someplace nearby.

"Ruby!"

More warmth enveloped her and through blood and sweat, she could smell Yang's perfume.

"Hiya sis," Ruby croaked. "How long was I out? Did we win?"

Yang laughed weakly. "Yeah. We won. Totally kicked their asses. Blake and Weiss are off to… Get some stuff. They should be back anytime."

"Oh. That's good."

Yang picked her up, cradling her in her lap the way she vaguely remember - or thought she did - that her mother had when she had been a child.

"You're okay," she said quietly, more to herself than to Ruby. "You're okay."

Ruby made a soft sound of agreement. She was too tired to vocalize it until a question popped into her head.

"Yang. Why can't I see?"

She reached for her face and Yang's hands intercepted hers, closing about her wrists like shackles.

"You - uh - you tried to scratch your eyes out. Do you remember?"

Ruby thought back. She vaguely recalled making the decision. It had made perfect sense at the time.

"Oh."

"Blake thinks they're fine but we decided to bandage them for now, okay?"

Ruby swallowed down a surge of panic. She was safe. They'd beaten the monsters and she was with Yang. She was safe.

Voices drew near and Ruby quickly recognized the two girls bickering with one another. Weiss and Blake.

"We found some gasoline," Blake said.

"With the rest of my dust, it should be enough to bring this place down," Weiss said.

"Good," Yang said. "That just leaves one more thing."

There was a pregnant pause. Something they'd talked about before but didn't want to talk about again.

"We don't have to-"

"We have to!" Yang hissed. "You know we do, Blake."

"You can't be sure," Weiss said, her soft voice barely heard over the crackling of the fire.

"No. I can't be and I'm not… But I'm not gonna be taking the risk."

"Yang," Ruby said. "What's going on?"

"Nothing. It's nothing, Rubes."

She was lying.

"Yang. Tell me. Please."

Yang drew a slow, deep breath, like she was trying to steady herself. Even then, when she spoke, she sounded close to tears.

"There's a bunch of the cult guys alive. We need to deal with them."

There was something hard and resolute in her voice and Ruby felt her stomach twist.

"So we call the police. I mean, they did a lot of bad stuff down here. They'll put em in jail for a long, long time."

"And if they tell anyone about this place… Or if there's another place like this? If that person tells another one? They could try this again in a year, or ten years… or a hundred, whatever. We can't risk it."

"But-"

"Ruby," Weiss said. "She is right. We have the possibility to stop a great evil here and now from ever plaguing Remnant again. That is what huntresses are supposed to do, is it not?"

Blake spat something. Curse-words in a tongue Ruby didn't know.

"I'm sorry, Ruby," she said. "I've tried. I can't think of another way. We need to erase all evidence of this ever happening. We can't talk to anyone about this. Not Ozpin, not our parents, not other friends. No one."

Yang settled next to Ruby, her warm hands giving her shoulders a squeeze.

"Don't worry, Rubes. I'll take care of you. I'll always take care of you."

She straightened again. "Blake?"

"I-" Blake sounded like she might be sick. "I can't, Yang. I know we have to but I can't."

"I'll do it." Weiss didn't sound much better but her voice was steady.

"Please don't do this," Ruby whispered, gripping the hands on her shoulders. "Please Yang. There's gotta be some better way."

"I'm sorry," Yang said, her voice hollow. "This is the best I can do."

She walked away and Blake slipped up next to Ruby, easing one arm underneath hers and helping her up.

"We don't have to stay here for this," she said. "Come on."

They'd only made it a few steps away when the sharp crack of gunfire erupted.

"Come on," Blake repeated, her body growing rigid with tension.

People started screaming and they both walked faster, almost running from the horror still in progress in that temple. Ruby had a feeling that she never would stop running. Silenced descended upon the cave again, save for the slow, steady dripping of water. She stumbled and Blake caught her without breaking their pace, a warm, solid presence at her side.

At least she wasn't alone.

* * *

Author's note: The idea for this fic came to me quite a while back. I was watching TheSpoonyOne's video on something called Cthulhupunk - a mesh between Call of Cthulhu and Cyberpunk. In that video, and in others, he stressed the importance of never ever showing your player the book where it said Cthulhupunk. The idea was to keep that part as a secret, even if you did something similar with Dungeons and Dragons, etc etc. That way, the horror would be far, far scarier.

So I set out to write a story following that principle, one that was a little bit derivative of other (greater) works, such as The Gentle Art of Making Enemies. The idea would be that the horror would hinted at early on, but creep up slowly. A highly experimental effort I will most likely look back upon in a few years time and roll my smack my forehead wondering "What the hell was I thinking?"

Regardless, I hope you have all enjoyed this complete clusterfuck up a story and an idea. Please let me know how I succeeded in my efforts or how I failed! I've appreciated all the feedback and hope for more! :)


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